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<font> <strong>Foreclosures at Record High in First Half 2009 Despite
Aid
</strong></font><br>
<a
href="http://messenger.truthout.org/ss/link.php?M=33448&N=109&C=3de39b7f486da6123cdc0933336b67b4&L=884">
<font color="#cc0000">http://www.truthout.org/071609A?n</font></a> <br>
Lynn Adler, Reuters: "U.S. home foreclosure activity galloped to a
record in the first half of the year, overwhelming broad efforts to
remedy failing loans while job losses escalated."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/bank_walkaways_from_foreclosed.html">http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/bank_walkaways_from_foreclosed.html</a><br>
<br>
<h3>Bank 'walkaways' from foreclosed homes are a growing, troubling
trend</h3>
<h4>Posted by <a href="mailto:slivings@plaind.com">Sandra
Livingston/Plain Dealer Reporter</a> July 19, 2009 09:00AM</h4>
<div class="photo-center large"><img
src="cid:part1.03080404.01050306@mailbag.com"><span class="byline"><br>
<br>
John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer</span><span class="caption"><br>
<br>
A
pair of boarded up windows are overgrown with vines on a foreclosed
home on the city's East Side. Banks are backing away from properties
they have foreclosed on creating a new set of issues for neighborhoods.</span></div>
<p>Renetta Atterberry thought she had lost her East 102nd Street house.
So she was shocked to learn in January -- five years after her mortgage
company filed for foreclosure -- that it was still in her name. </p>
<p> Worse, the long-vacant rental home had been vandalized and she
faced a raft of housing code violations. Since then, she has been
saddled with debts of<strong> </strong>about $12,000 to pay for
demolition and back taxes. </p>
<p> "I thought I had nothing else to do with that home," said
Atterberry. "I was so embarrassed and humiliated by this." </p>
<p> Her mortgage company didn't buy the house and never took it to
sheriff's sale to see if somebody else would, leaving Atterberry the
legal owner, responsible for upkeep and taxes. </p>
<p> These so-called "bank walkaways" are another troubling development
in the foreclosure crisis, particularly in cities like Cleveland with
weaker housing markets, say housing advocates and government officials.
</p>
Lenders or mortgage companies decide they don't want homes they have
already foreclosed on...<br>
<br>
Full Story:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/bank_walkaways_from_foreclosed.html">http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/07/bank_walkaways_from_foreclosed.html</a><br>
<br>
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<br>
>From Dan:<br>
<br>
The above article is a Must Read item. You have a vastly incomplete
picture of the damage being done by the foreclosure war on the Middle
Class and municipal governments if you aren't aware of this. This issue
screams out for a nation-wide organization to track and overcome it.
These banks are willfully evicting people from their homes, then
walking away from the half-completed foreclosure process without
removing the prior homeowners' names from legal title. This leaves the
prior homeowners, who thought they no longer had anything to do with
these properties, liable for code violations and back property taxes,
while leaving the homes rotting away in legal limbo. It has an horrific
effect on communities.<br>
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