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Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Joe Lents hasn't made a payment on his $1.5 million mortgage since 2002. That's when Washington Mutual Inc. first tried to foreclose on his home in Boca Raton, Florida. The Seattle-based lender failed to prove that it owned Lents's mortgage note and dropped attempts to take his house. Subsequent efforts to foreclose have stalled because no one has produced the paperwork.
``If you're going to take my house away from me, you better own the note,'' said Lents, 63, the former chief executive officer of a now-defunct voice recognition software company.
This problem has actually been noted for years, but only now, with the subprime meltdown, has it gotten to its current size.
This seems like a case of large banks and financial institutions getting too clever for their own good. It's one thing to slice up debt into exotic credit instruments and sell them in "tranches." It's apparently quite another to walk into a courtroom and claim you have title to someone's house, even when the paperwork is unclear on that point. Increasingly, judges are losing patience with that.
Interesting legal point here, however I don't believe the homeowner can continue to get by without making payments. A legal debt has been established at the time of settlement.
I've read several articles like the one the OP posted. Seems when they wrapped all these mortgages into investment vehicles they lost track of the actual lender. Guess greed got in the way of doing all the paperwork the right way.
Interesting legal point here, however I don't believe the homeowner can continue to get by without making payments. A legal debt has been established at the time of settlement.
Yes, but if no one collects for so many years, even this debt becomes uncollectible. That would be interesting, get a $1.5M home free and clear over a paperwork mixup..
It is always the pesky little details that get ya. this would not have worked for me because my mortgage is owned by the bank that bought the bank that bought the bank that made the loan. Suits me just fine. Four years to go.
I dont feel sorry for the banks. Do you? I hope they all go under and have to be rescued. Starting with WAMU and BOA.
I have no sympathy for banks at all, however I do have a lot of concerns about continuing the integrity of financial transactions.
Look at it from this point of view, folks not paying mortgage obligations is "bad debt", and could/would raise interest rates or/and fees for subsequent borrowers. Everything financial is integrated at some point.
Home owners who are irresponsible and not making their payments are using "technicalities" in order to keep them from taking their home which they refuse to pay what they owe on it?
Those people who refuse to pay their payments and then play political and legal tricks to demand they get away with it are thieves, nothing more. It doesn't say much about the guy. Its not like he started this as a matter of principal to show a flaw in the system (edit: Meaning he can pay for it and will, but was making a statement). Seems like this is an irresponsible guy that was grasping at straws in order to get away with theft.
He can pay his bills (which he had all the choice in the world to decide how much they would be) or he can go get his dinner out of a dumpster for all I care. This guy deserves nothing short of pure scorn from the public. He is a deviant and people are praising him as "sticking it to the man". Can't pay for the product, give up the product.
Keeping people who are irresponsible in their homes just sends a message that you can cheat and win. Everyone loves to claim how the corporations are the liars and thieves (which may very well be in many cases), but never want to admit that much of the consumers out there are just as crooked and unethical.
As for people wishing financial institutions to go under. Go for it, I own all of my property out right. I can live on a cash basis, can everyone else? That would be a riot. Seeing all the irresponsible people being relegated back to a cash basis and finding out they can't even afford a 1/4 of their lifestyle. Sure, down with banks. Lets see how that works.
Hey, Nomander, good point. I think I could live on a cash basis as well. The guy is a thief and should be treated as one unless he has a bankruptcy case.
it is still amusing to think that with their armies of lawyers, accountants and bookeepers they lost the trail of who owes how much to whom. did they ever register the transactions at the county records office of deeds?
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