Do the financial companies need a serious wake-up call or what?
I swear, the more stories I hear about the Rpeublicans and the banks and financial companies, the more I'm convinced that most of them belong in jail.
But the Cook County Illinois Sheriff (which includes Chicago) has had a Mr. Smith moment and is saying "No More!"
An outraged sheriff in Illinois who refuses to evict "innocent" renters from foreclosed homes criticized mortgage companies Thursday and said the law should protect victims of the mortgage meltdown.
OF course, this issue involves renters in investment properties whose owners have been foreclosed upon. A few short years ago, people blithely speculated on investment properties, reasoning that (a) the times of easy money would never end; (b) property values could only keep going up.
Ah, WRONG BOTH TIMES. Of course, most of these schmucks are too lazy to let the people who still LIVE In those investment properties know what's going on, so that they can at least be warned ahead of time. no. And, of course, the banks are actually breaking the law by not verifying residency before eviction.
Now HERE'S a guy who thus far appears to have his head on straight:
Sheriff Thomas J. Dart said earlier he is suspending foreclosure evictions in Cook County, which includes the city of Chicago.
The county had been on track to reach a record number of evictions, many because of mortgage foreclosures.
Many good tenants are suffering because building owners have fallen behind on their mortgage payments, he said Thursday on CNN's "American Morning."
"These poor people are seeing everything they own put out on the street. ... They've paid their bills, paid them on time. Here we are with a battering ram at the front door going to throw them out. It's gotten insane," he said.
This trend is happening all across the country. How many more law enforcement officials are starting to wonder what exactly is going on? Hopefully, more than a few. More:
"These mortgage companies ... don't care who's in the building," Dart said Wednesday. "They simply want their money and don't care who gets hurt along the way.
"On top of it all, they want taxpayers to fund their investigative work for them. We're not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We're just not going to evict innocent tenants. It stops today."
Reliably, the bankers in Illinois are furious:
The Illinois Bankers Association opposed the plan, saying that Dart "was elected to uphold the law and to fulfill the legal duties of his office, which include serving eviction notices."
The association said Dart could be found in contempt of court for ignoring court eviction orders.
"The reality is that by ignoring the law and his legal responsibilities, he is carrying out 'vigilantism' at the highest level of an elected official," it said. "The Illinois banking industry is working hard to help troubled homeowners in many ways, but Sheriff Dart's declaration of 'martial law' should not be tolerated."
Well, fuck 'em, THIS sheriff says:
"I think the outrage on my part with them [is] that they could so cavalierly issue documents and have me throw people out of homes who have done absolutely nothing wrong," Dart said. "They played by all the rules.
"I told them, 'You send an agent out, you send somebody out that gives me any type of assurance that the appropriate person is in the house, I will fulfill the order.'
That sounds like the kind of sheriff I'd expect to see from the home county of a certain Presidential candidate!
Right now I have to get back to work, so if you can find the Internet presence of Sheriff Thomas J. Dart on your own (I can't imagine it would be that difficult) DO send him some love!
There's law and there is morality. They should not be mutually exclusive. I think this guy has BOTH on his side in this case.