Not a Wonderful Life: The Effects of Aggressive Foreclosure

[kas125]

One morning in December 2008, four months later, the kids left for school, and she left to drive her school bus route. When Zabrina came home from work, her windows were boarded up, the locks on the doors were changed; she had no way to get in. "When I left, I just had my clothes on my back for work," she says. Her two younger children were left in their school uniforms. Her computers and paperwork for her business were also lost inside. "I had never been homeless in my life, but after that, I was." They never lived in the house again.

The sheriff had never sent anyone to evict Zabrina and her family. Wells Fargo never obtained a court order for foreclosure or eviction, and Zabrina said the bank had sent her just one notice of late payment. A private process server had been sent to give her notice of a pending foreclosure, but he didn't give her proper notice, settling instead for the boyfriend of her sister in Park Forest. Wells Fargo showed me photos of the house before the board up, with the windows open or broken out. "The house appeared to be abandoned," said Wells Fargo spokesman Tom Goyda. "Obviously, there's a difference of account."

Last fall, three major banks — GMAC, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America — suspended their foreclosures after they admitted to falsifying affidavits, often with notorious "robo-signers." Robo-signers are low-level banking executives who robotically notarized foreclosure affidavits by the thousands, without any review of the accuracy of the mortgage documents, as required by law.

Last October Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart imposed a moratorium on evictions from those banks — his second reprieve in as many years. Zabrina's attorney, Kelli Dudley, said she had 10 clients in Cook County who lost their homes from improper foreclosures. Reports have come from across the country of people finding their houses boarded up with no order of eviction. In Michigan, a man found his property boarded up even though he paid cash for his house. They got the wrong address.

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http://gapersblock.com/mechanics/2011/04/04/not-a-wonderful-life-the-effects-of-aggressive-foreclosure/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d9a88e154756e73%2C0

[Mnemosyne]

1. K&R for more visibility and disgust. n/t

[kas125]

2. It IS disgusting. And evidently, she now lives near me. I

wish I could find out where in Valpo she lives, I'd at least go and give her a hug and an ear to listen.

[Angry Dragon]

3. The feds should have stepped in

and then they looked the other way

[BR_Parkway]

6. Didn't they just issue a report that said they didn't find any problem foreclosures?

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. How many more stories like this?

[riderinthestorm]

5. ALL of these stories need to come out. There are still DUers who think the banks are right on these

foreclosures and that these folks must somehow be delinquent/at fault. The banks are winning the PR war on this and until EVERYONE understands that there's been large scale fraud by the banks, abetted by US and stage agencies, every single last one of these stories needs to be published daily.

[Lorien]

7. The zeal to "blame the victim" that's found even here is beyond despicable

as is what the banks are doing. It's not enough to take your job and health care; they want it ALL.