Free Republic

The eviction from their million-dollar home could come at any moment. Keith and Janet Ritter have been bracing for it — and battling against it — almost from the moment they moved into the five-bedroom, 4,900-square-foot manse along the Potomac River in Fort Washington. In five years, they have never made a mortgage payment, a fact that amazes even the most seasoned veterans of the foreclosure crisis. The Ritters have kept the sheriff at bay by repeatedly filing for bankruptcy and by exploiting changes in Maryland’s laws designed to help delinquent homeowners avoid foreclosure. Those efforts to protect homeowners have...

David Englett walked around his front yard Wednesday afternoon picking up trash. He lives in Crowley, and understands that comes with being a homeowner. But what he doesn’t understand is being responsible for something that’s no longer his. “I feel like I’m being punished for something I didn’t do,” said Englett. “It’s really frustrating and costing me a lot of time.” The truck driver used to live in Arlington, but two years ago his house was foreclosed. Englett hasn’t lived there since. Last July when he tried to renew his license he found out he had outstanding warrants. “I don’t...

Why has it taken the Obama Administration over three years to address the foreclosure scandal and have they actually addressed it? The scandal, which has been referred to in some quarters as “Foreclosure-gate” involves mortgage companies using a phony practice called “robo-signing” in order to fraudulently foreclose on homeowners. The company behind most of these robo-signings is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, known as MERS. This national company has served as a clearinghouse and as a rapid computer generated paperwork processor for the big banks and secondary mortgage investors seeking to process and re-process mortgages. MERS tracks an average of 65...

Among the analyses of the White House’s recent anti-foreclosure resolution with the banks, most critics are calling it a case study in politics, publicity or pandering. No matter how you slice it, they all say the law is pathetic...

Plunging deeper into the farce-hole, the FT reports tonight that Obama's foreclosure settlement with the banks over their improper seizure of tax-paying US citizens' homes will in fact be subsidized by those very same US taxpayers. It is a hidden clause (that has not been made public yet) that allows the banks to count future loan modifications under the $30bn (taxpayer funded) HAMP initiative towards their $35bn agreement to restructure obligations under the new settlement. As the FT goes on to note, BofA will be able to use future mods made under HAMP towards the $7.6bn in borrower assistance it...

It is official. State and federal governments have condoned forgery, perjury and fraud in what’s been called the “robo-signing” foreclosure debacle. Last week, the five biggest banks in America signed on to a $26 billion deal that, basically, lets them off with a slap on the wrist for fraudulently foreclosing on homes in the last few years. I am not going to go on and on about how unfair and unjust this deal was or how the rule of law has been thrown down the stairs. I am going to focus on the fallout of this morally corrupt deal. There...

One of the largest companies that provided home foreclosure services to lenders across the nation, DocX, has been indicted on forgery charges by a Missouri grand jury — one of the few criminal actions to follow reports of widespread improprieties against homeowners. A grand jury in Boone County, Mo., handed up an indictment Friday accusing DocX of 136 counts of forgery in the preparation of documents used to evict financially strained borrowers from their homes. Lorraine O. Brown, the company’s founder and former president, was indicted on the same charges. Employees of DocX, a unit of Lender Processing Services of...

'Maybe you can start redeeming yourself by helping your fellow man' Kathleen Willey, the woman who courageously testified about being assaulted by President Clinton, is scheduled to lose her home in just three days in a bank auction – but, in a last-minute plea on behalf of millions of homeowners just like her, she has written to billionaire George Soros for help. Willey’s original home loan was issued by IndyMac Bank before the FDIC took receivership of the bank following the 2008 collapse. At the time of the FDIC takeover of IndyMac, it was the third-largest bank failure in U.S....

On Jan. 23, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun L.S. Donovan met in Chicago with several Democratic state attorneys general (AGs) in an attempt to strong-arm them into signing up for an administration-backed agreement to settle the “robo-signing” scandal. Wall Street would pay what sounds like a large fine ($25 billion), and in exchange, the state AGs would relieve the bankers of all legal liabilities related to the fraudulent mortgage-lending practices that led directly to the 2008 financial meltdown and a 30 percent drop in U.S. home prices. The fraudulent practices of the mortgage servicers have injected...

A notary public who signed tens of thousands of false documents in a massive foreclosure scam before blowing the whistle on the scandal has been found dead in her Las Vegas home. NBC station KSNV of Las Vegas reported that the woman, Tracy Lawrence, 43, was scheduled to be sentenced Monday morning after she pleaded guilty this month to notarizing the signature of an individual not in her presence. She failed to show up for her hearing, and police found her body at her home later in the day. It could not immediately be determined whether Lawrence, who faced up...

Rumor has it that in a matter of days, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits.

CHICAGO, IL – President Obama’s Chicago homecoming on Wednesday was less welcoming than he expected, as Obama was shocked to learn his Hyde Park residence had been foreclosed upon some time last year. Obama was in Chicago for a series of fundraisers and decided to visit his old home, only to discover the locks had been changed and a new family had moved in. Since his inauguration, President Obama had neglected to make a single payment on the home he’d shared with his wife and two daughters, while the house itself fell into grave disrepair.

(Reuters) - The number of U.S. homes that received a foreclosure filing fell to a four-year low in 2011 as a slowdown in processing hit the market, RealtyTrac said in a report on Thursday. Foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, slid by 34 percent in 2011, the lowest level since 2007, just as the housing market was starting to crumble. RealtyTrac said there were filings on 1,887,777 homes last year. Bank seizures of homes fell to 804,423 from 1,050,500 in 2010, also marking the lowest level in four years. "A big part that is inflating...

Grapevine police investigate the scene where they found seven people dead outside Dallas in Grapevine, Texas, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead. Six members of a Texas family apparently opened Christmas presents just before a relative dressed as Santa Claus showed up, opened fire and killed them before killing himself, police said Monday. Grapevine police spokesman Sgt. Robert Eberling said the shooter showed up in the Santa outfit shortly before gunfire erupted and was...

Evicted this week from his home of 40 years, retired Orange County firefighter Booker T. Perry and a new coalition added to the mounting criticisms against Florida Attorney General Bondi's handling of the foreclosure crisis. A teary-eyed Perry stood on the front steps of his white-brick home Wednesday and recounted that he received only one foreclosure notice before his eviction and the rest of the legal filings went to an attorney hired by his estranged wife. He never saw them. Flagstar Bank recently sold the house to an investor who purchased it for $17,000 and ordered the eviction, which occurred...

Earlier this week, the Occupy movement honed in on foreclosed homes across the country. In over 25 cities across the country, Occupy protesters staged rallies on behalf of foreclosed homeowners facing eviction. Here in San Francisco, protesters congregated in the Bayview community to highlight the plight of a foreclosed homeowner in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Occupy protesters didn’t seem to have done their homework, as our friends over at SocketSite did about the home and homeowner they selected. On Tuesday, Occupy organizers descended upon 1279 Quesada Avenue, rallying around homeowner Vivian Richardson as she undergoes foreclosure proceedings. Calling herself the victim...

The Occupy Wall Street campaign is moving from downtown to the suburbs. Chased from their encampments on Wall Street, Los Angeles City Hall and elsewhere, protesters are now taking their push for financial democracy to neighborhoods around the country. On Tuesday, they staged demonstrations at foreclosed homes in nearly two dozen states to draw attention to the effect of the housing collapse on American families. In California, a coalition of labor, housing and minority-rights activists gathered in South Gate, Riverside, Oakland and San Francisco, helping families move back into their foreclosed homes — and vowing to stay there to defend...

"The Occupy Wall Street protests are moving into the neighborhood. Finding it increasingly difficult to camp in public spaces, Occupy protesters across the country are reclaiming foreclosed homes and boarded-up properties, signaling a tactical shift for the movement against wealth inequality." If the so-called president of the US really wanted to do something productive with the stroke of his Executive Order pin he could mandate that all homes in the US be priced at current market values and set 30 year fixed at 4.50 %. Then start a PRO MANUFACTURING-AMERICAN initiative to build products in America where someone earning $8-9...

A 103-year-old woman and her 83-year-old daughter were just moments from being evicted from their home Tuesday, when sheriff's deputies and the moving company hired by the bank decided not to go through with the action. Channel 2's Ryan Young was there when the family started thanking God for the miracle. At justthree weeks shy of her 104th birthday, Vita Lee has shared her home on Penelope Road in Northwest Atlanta with her daughter for 53 years. "I love it. It's a mansion," Lee said about her house. Fulton County sheriff's deputies and movers showed up at Lee's home Tuesday...

Now that their general strike is over, Occupy Oakland activists are looking for a new initiative to keep the momentum rolling - and their gaze is turning toward taking over foreclosed or abandoned buildings. The subject came up in earnest in group meetings over the past couple of days, and conversations have narrowed down not to whether Occupy activists should take over empty buildings, but when and how. "It's a very important front for the Occupy movement all over this country, and if any one city can set a precedent for taking over foreclosed buildings, the idea will then quickly...