housing crisis deepens, cities fight lenders over abandoned homes

[katty]

more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22506609/

Dirty deeds
As housing crisis deepens, cities fight lenders over abandoned homes
BusinessWeek.com


By Michael Orey

updated 6:21 a.m. PT, Mon., Jan. 7, 2008

On Dec. 17 in a windowless Buffalo courtroom, Cindy T. Cooper, a prosecutor for the city, buzzes among a dozen men in suits, cutting deals. "You've got to unboard , go in, and clean it out," she tells one. "If all the repairs are done quickly, I wouldn't ask for any fines." To another, she says, "the gutters weren't done right," and asks to see receipts for the work. It's "Bank Day" in Judge Henry J. Nowak's housing courtroom, more typically a venue where landlords and tenants duke it out over evictions and back rent. Instead, Cooper is asking lawyers for CitiFinancial, JPMorgan Chase, and Countrywide Financial to fix problems like peeling paint, broken masonry, and overgrown or trash-filled yards at houses the city says the banks are responsible for maintaining. It may be surprising to find these financial-services giants hauled before this obscure local tribunal.

In fact, Cooper and Nowak are at the forefront of a pioneering effort to deal with a vexing problem: The surging number of vacant and abandoned homes resulting from the mortgage market meltdown. The vacancies occur when lenders bring foreclosure suits against delinquent borrowers. Mere notice that such an action might be filed often sends residents packing. In Buffalo and other Rust Belt cities, the problem has been particularly acute, because in many cases banks are abandoning the houses, too, after determining that their value is so low that it's not worth laying claim to them.

[Fed_Up_Grammy]

1. This too shall pass. I've seen it about four times in my lifetime.

[katty]

2. wow, really...well that's good to know!

[Xipe Totec]

3. Like kidney stones, this too shall pass

third go around for me.