The house next door to me has been vacant for 4 years. The COP who lived there took out a second and bought a really big boat and then just stopped making payments, saved up a ton of dough, bought a new house (using his wife's credit) and walked away leaving a boatload of trash in the front yard and back yard.
In order to keep the weeds down, the bank or somebody poisoned the front yard with gallons and gallons of Grass killer and of course it killed my lawn because of the downhill run off.
As far as I can tell it has still not been foreclosed on. The bank is just sitting on it waiting for the market to get back to where they can sell it and not lose a lot. However the guy was $450,000 upside down when he walked away and the house is probably not worth more than $100,000 because it basically needs to be rebuilt.
In the old days this cop would have gone to debtors prison.
The cop did wrong big time, and so did the PTB who caused these “Bubbles” in the first place - not a single one of those traitorous criminals have gone to prison. What again did the Enron boys do to deserve jail time yet Jon Corzine et.al. walks the streets. You are in California, so you have your own special kind of hell out there.
Regardless of who put the weed killer on the lawn, the bank is responsible for the off-site migration of pollutants from their property. You can get a new lawn out of them.
If they balk, just ask them how much the Phase 2 site investigation is going to cost to clear it from having a chemical spill reported on it...
I have the same problem, people just walked away from the house next door. I understand some people have to do it, because they have no choice.
What infuriates me is the de-stigmatization of debt. We wouldn’t want anyone to feel “bad” because they bought a house far bigger than they needed, three cars, wide screen televisions, cell phones for every family member and vacations in Hawaii, but for some reason, they have to default on the loan and walk away scot free.
It irritates me no end. I do think the people next to me had to walk away because they really did appear to have no choice...he had been out of work a long time, and was injured, and they had no frills that I could see. Just bad luck.
This times a few million is the problem. We will not get back to a properly working economy until housing is sold at market clearing prices.