Funny How Rule of Law Applies to Dart for Some and Not Banks
I’m not entirely comfortable with Dart’s position, but it’s a stunt in absolutely the best sense. He tried to approach the legislature about banks and mortgage companies violating the law and attempted to get better oversight over their due dilligence. They blocked it and are essentially getting the sheriff’s office to due their jobs for them.
What Dart is doing is illegal in a broad sense, but also far narrower than people seem to understand. He’s not trying to stop evictions of bad tenants and he’s even willing to evict people if he’s given a affadavitt that the bank/mortgage company/servicer has determined who lives in a property and that they have received the necessary legal notifications.
In a very real sense, people decrying Dart are asking for everyone to believe the fine upstanding folks of the mortgage industry.
Seriously? No, seriously?
It’s true that banks who have been largely responsible now have to jump through extra hoops, but that’s true of the entire situation. That’s too bad and unfair to good banks. I don’t blame Tom Dart–I blame a complete breakdown in regulatory and oversight structure including judges and lawyers accepting at face value filings they clearly no are false regarding due dilligence.
It was the Albany Park Community Council and the neighbors it represents who brought to Dart’s attention the insane way banks were being allowed to evict innocent tenants whose landlords had lost their properties through mortgage foreclosure proceedings — even when the tenants had paid their rent and knew nothing of the problems.
Dart announced his office will quit carrying out evictions stemming from mortgage foreclosures until lenders start providing proof they have taken the necessary steps to identify who is living at an address and that those facing eviction have received proper legal notice.
Typical of the mindless lending practices that got the nation into this financial mess in the first place, lenders have been trying to conduct evictions without actually figuring out who lives at the property. That should come as no surprise, I suppose, since it’s now apparent they often never even bothered to find out to whom they were lending.
In the case of houses and condos that the previous owner was renting out, this careless practice has resulted in stunned tenants — rent paid in full — coming home from work to find their possessions on the curb. No notice. No opportunity to look for a new place to live. The same thing is happening with entire apartment buildings.
Dart said once he saw the abuse, he didn’t want his office to be a part of it, especially at a time when foreclosure evictions are running 400 to 500 a month — nearly triple what they were two years ago. “We’re no longer going to be a party to something that is so unjust,” Dart said.
A responsible bank should welcome the move and any Cook County judge should recognize their complicity in allowing mortgage brokers and banks to subvert the law with filings which are clearly false if they are claiming they have fulfilled their legal obligations. The quickest way to solve the problem would be for the Bar to take disciplinary action against lawyers who submit such documents without knowing whether the process has been properly done. That would ensure pretty quick compliance.