Cross-Posted at Calitics.com.
So the Daily Breeze (covering the Torrance-LAX-Long Beach area) has an update on the Laura Richardson foreclosure story. Seems her lender on her vacant Sacramento house has rescinded the foreclosure. That would be good, except another party has already bought the house and has spent money on repairs and improvements. He's not leaving, and he says he'll sue Richardson and WaMu, the lender.
Did Richardson get a break?
Apparently, the Long Beach Press-Telegram (from a story no longer available online) obtained Rep. Richardson's credit report which indicates she had a mechanic's lien on her record at the time she bought the Sacramento home, after she left her wrecked BMW at an auto repair shop, and never retrieved or paid for it (and then began using a city-owned vehicle). Nevertheless, WaMau still gave her a 100% loan.
Tanta at Calculated Risk has a good analysis as to the details of this transaction (and I publically apologize to her for a snark the last time she posted on this subject) and she asks some very trenchant questions of the lender:
How often are modifications or repayment plans offered to owners of vacant investment properties with no or negative equity that have never been listed or rented?
How often are modifications offered to borrowers with two other properties currently in foreclosure?
How often are modifications arranged in the week before the scheduled trustee's sale, following nearly a year of no contact?
Does WaMu's policy on modifications make any reference to requiring a "commitment to homeownership" on the borrower's part? How, normally, is that established?
Does WaMu's policy on modifications make any reference to establishing that the borrower does not display a "disregard for debt obligations"? How, normally, is that established?
I think I'd like to know the answers to those questions myself, because I've tried a do a couple of workouts for clients with fewer "red flags" and had no luck at all. Of course, if the secret is "be a member of Congress" I will continue to have no luck, and I won't much care for it being so.
People here at Kos have insisted that Richardson will still win her seat, because the district is something like Dem +4,000, and I have no reason to doubt any of it, but her GOP opponent is making some political hay out of it. Richardson has struck back, noting that he has made numerous loans to himself, but that hardly seems comparable to the mess she's made for herself.
I'm not going to speculate as to what happened, but I will say that I just don't think that it's enough to have more Democrats in Congress if they behave like Republicans.