How the foreclosure mess may affect homeowners, buyers and sellers
You’ve probably seen the headlines about the fast-spreading foreclosure mess — moratoriums on home sales, calls for congressional investigations, and state and federal litigation in the wings.
But what could all this mean to you as a homeowner, buyer or seller? It all depends on your situation.
For example, although you might not be delinquent on your mortgage, the bank-owned house down the street that has been sitting vacant and in poor maintenance for months may not be resold for an extended period to new owners who would make needed repairs. If the house becomes a long-term eyesore, this could negatively affect neighborhood property values.
In fact, it’s possible the evicted former owners are hiring a defense attorney to look through documents for evidence of irregularities in processing by the bank that could throw the entire foreclosure into question and stall any resale for additional months.
“The phones are ringing off the hook,” said Ronald Scott Kaniuk, a foreclosure and bankruptcy law specialist in Boca Raton, Fla. “People know that the banks haven’t been playing fair” on foreclosures and have cut corners through mass “robo-signings” of documents rather than proper reviews, he said. The coming tidal wave of private and public litigation against banks could stall foreclosures indefinitely, Kaniuk believes.
The sheer numbers of houses and families potentially affected are huge. According to data researcher RealtyTrac, lenders filed for foreclosure on about 339,000 homes nationwide in August alone. During the same month, banks took back about 95,000 homes for eventual resale. Roughly 5 million households are somewhere in the foreclosure process, according to industry estimates — they’ve received notices of default and are on the conveyor belt to foreclosure and eviction.
Even without mass litigation gumming up past and future foreclosures, the process often is not a speedy one, especially in the 23 states where courts must approve each foreclosure. In the slowest states, the full cycle can take more than 500 days from the first filing to the sale.
Based on conversations with legal, banking and real estate experts, here are some of the potential scenarios and issues emerging from the national foreclosure mess. Say you fit into one of these categories:
• Recent buyer of a foreclosed home. There’s a chance that the bank’s foreclosure processing could be found to have been improper or that the bank did not adequately document its legal title to the house. What does this mean for you? First, , did you take out title insurance? If you financed the purchase, it’s virtually certain the mortgage company required at least a lender’s policy that covers title issues affecting its collateral. The title insurance underwriter will go to court, if necessary, to defend the lender’s interest and compensate it for any legitimate losses. But if you did not take out an owner’s policy, or bought for all cash, you could find yourself defending your investment on your own.
• Financially distressed homeowner who recently received notice of a foreclosure filing from the bank. What to do? Peter J. Henning, a professor at Wayne State University Law School, says now more than ever it is crucial to ask an attorney to review all documents you receive. Henning says that banks have been sloppy in their high-volume processing of foreclosures. “They often seem to have sort of a ‘good enough for government work’ approach,” he said, “because they assumed nobody was watching.” The foreclosure crisis, which Henning calls “hydra-headed” in its wide-ranging effects, should force banks to be more careful in future foreclosures, he said.
• Homeowner behind on payments but has not yet received a foreclosure notice. According to Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Assn. of Consumer Advocates, which provides support to foreclosure legal assistance programs, this may be a propitious time to demand a loan modification — even a substantial principal reduction — from your loan servicer. The nationwide foreclosure mess “might shake up the banks enough to convince them to finally become real partners” in devising workable solutions for distressed borrowers — “forcing them to deal with the reality they’ve created,” Rheingold said.
For their part, some of the country’s largest banks insist that their foreclosures have been proper and that foreclosed borrowers typically are severely delinquent. Bank of America says that its average customer who goes to foreclosure has not made mortgage payments for 18 months.
Distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.
