Foreclosures: A Non-Traditional Approach

DePaul Journal for Social Justice, 2019

The following is an excerpt from INIQUITY (forthcoming 2019). Inequity explores the legal problems often faced by the author’s homeowner clients and foreclosure bar colleagues alike, including the provision of bad information, inadequate due process, incompetent representation and scams within the foreclosure context. Inequity draws attention to these issues and proposes changes to remedy them. The excerpt chosen focuses on dispelling myths surrounding foreclosure that may contribute to these problems, including the assumption that foreclosures are indefensible, a misconception that the author argues is often fueled by classism and racism.  Kelli Dudley, DePaul University College of Law Professor, housing law attorney, and Director of the Resistance Legal Clinic. Dudley was a 2015 recipient of the DePaul University ENGAGE Award. She has practiced law privately for over 15 years, providing vigorous defenses to foreclosure actions, litigating fair housing matters, filing affirmative ...

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, 1988

This Article is an expanded version of a report covering the new foreclosure law prepared for the 1987 Illinois Judicial Conference. The Conference presentation on the new act was made by Judges William T. Caisley and Anthony J.

Fordham Law Review, 2008

Homeownership is in crisis. Millions of families are at risk of foreclosure as they are caught between declining housing values and rising interest payments on adjustable-rate mortgages. The primary concern for such families is not that they will become homeless - most families who lose their homes could afford to become renters - but rather that they will lose their status as homeowners. For families required to sell their property by the government's use of eminent domain, a similar issue arises, as the 'fair market value' of some homes (the standard measure of compensation) is generally not enough to allow the family to purchase another home. The harm of losing one's status as homeowner has afar-reaching impact at both the individual and collective levels. Property ownership ties one to the larger community in myriad ways. As compared to renters, homeowners - even those with the same income, education, and other socioeconomic characteristics - tend to be more civi...

Todd, Scott's AI, wrote this Abstract: Historically, judicial pensions were funded by taxpayer dollars to ensure neutrality and prevent financial conflicts of interest. However, beginning around 2005-2008, many states, including Washington and New York, shifted judicial retirement investments into mortgage-backed securities (MBS)—the very financial instruments at the center of foreclosure disputes. This raises a critical question: Did judges overseeing foreclosure cases have a financial stake in ruling against homeowners? The Supreme Court in Jesinoski v. Countrywide (2015) held that a borrower rescinds a loan under TILA simply by giving written notice. Yet, many state courts—including those in Washington—ignored this ruling, favoring banks and mortgage servicers. If judicial retirement funds relied on the performance of MBS, courts had a built-in incentive to suppress homeowner claims and uphold foreclosures. This potential conflict of interest demands further investigation. How deeply were judicial pensions tied to MBS? And did this influence rulings in favor of lenders over homeowners? This article presents the foundation of this argument based on available evidence, particularly in Washington State. More historical research is needed to determine how widespread this issue is.

Law & Society: Private Law - Property eJournal, 2011

Mortgage securitization, subprime lending, a persistently weak housing market, and an explosion of residential mortgage defaults – today’s homeowners and banks face a new and challenging landscape. Recently, courts in several states have issued decisions that alter the terrain for mortgage foreclosures. In Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, among other states, courts have dismissed foreclosure actions on the basis of what might seem to be highly technical deficiencies in the pleading or proof. The most well-known–and controversial–in this cluster of cases is U.S. Bank National Ass’n v. Ibanez, decided by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts this year. In Ibanez, the court held that two assignee banks failed to obtain legal title to foreclosed properties because they failed to prove that they held valid assignments of the foreclosed mortgages at the moment that the foreclosure proceedings were begun.

De Jure, 2019

My thanks to qui tam plaintiff Jamie Heron for sending me a copy of this case, in which the Court's final Order begins: 1. "One who comes into equity must come with clean hands else all relief will be denied him regardless of merit of his claim, and it is not essential that act be a crime; it is enough that it be condemned by honest and reasonable men." Roberts v. Roberts, 84 So.2d 717 (Fla. 1956) 2. Therefore, even if Plaintiff had standing to foreclose (a meritorious claim), Plaintiff would be denied equitable relief of foreclosure upon a finding that Plaintiff took actions in pursuing this foreclosure that reasonable and honest men would condemn.

This article examines recent plans for US municipalities to use the state legal power of eminent domain to forcibly acquire ''underwater'' mortgages (i.e. those with negative equity), and to refinance them on terms more favorable to the homeowners in question, as a way of addressing in a socially progressive way the nation's ongoing foreclosure crisis. The article makes three main arguments. The first is that insofar as the plan threatens to disrupt prevailing norms of value distribution and risk bearing, it represents a fundamental challenge to the existing political economy of urban financial capitalism in the US and the law's mediation thereof. The second is that value, risk, and their mediation through law must be understood in the context of geographical unevenness and shifting scales of legal governance. The third is that the geographical political economy associated with the eminent domain plan is about discourses—of risk, of markets, and indeed of law per se—no less than materialities; and that the two are indelibly linked, with discourses having material effects when, through law, they structure value and risk for the manifold actors who operate within the sphere of housing finance.

2015

English Abstract: This article highlights the impact of the Aziz Ruling on Spanish legislation and judicial practice one year after it was delivered. Changes to formally adapt Spanish legislation to the doctrine of the Aziz Ruling have taken place through Act 1/2013. However, it is especially noteworthy that the judicial branch has sought to use the Aziz Ruling to bring about a deep reform of the system, applying de facto solutions without pre-existing legal norms, proposing progressive and ethical interpretations according to the doctrine established by the ECJ, and referring preliminary questions to the ECJ to counter new Spanish legislation.German Abstract: Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die tatsachliche Bedeutung fur die gesetzgeberische und richterliche Praxis der Entscheidung Aziz ein Jahr nach ihrem Erlass. Die formelle Anpassung des spanischen Rechts an die Anforderungen, die aus diesem Urteil entstammen, erfolgte mit Gesetz 1/2013. Gleichwohl muss besonders gewurdigt we...