Foreclosure: Courts Choc-A-Bloc With Foreclose Suits

November 12th, 2007 | Tags: Foreclosure

The courts are tottering under the load. Chief Justice. Rodgers of Connecticut Supreme Court had to announce on 23^rd October this year, the creating of the Bench-Bar Foreclosure Committee to scrutinize this issue. He said that the number of foreclosure related cases in 2005-06 totaled to 11,764. Now in 2006-07 it has risen to 15,773. In the courtroom of Blawie there were four or five boxes choking with files. Monday is the only day of the week when foreclosure hearings take place. At Bridgeport there are more than 140 such cases ready to be placed. Room 5D is does not have enough seats to accommodate attorneys and some of the clients. Most the latter do not show up. Their attorneys depute for them.

The mood in the courtroom is eerie – one can only hear the swirling and the crackling of pages being turned. It gives the feeling of being in a funeral. In a way the courtroom has become a place for the death– the death of dreams of owning a house.

Javier and Denise Ramirez are one of the few who have come to attend the hearing for themselves. On December 2005 they had lit the home fires in their single-family house in Platt Street, Bridgeport. Their monthly mortgage commitment at that time was $1,789 and was fixed for two years. The mortgage loan was in the sub-prime category, which had been created to help those who could not qualify for prime loans. The initial teaser rates with little or no down payment made the offer very tempting. Not just thousands but millions snapped it up. The reasoning was that after two years although interest would rise so would property value. But nobody dreamt that just the reverse would happen. Interests did rise but property value fell flat. With no equity left on the house it became impossible to refinance the loan. After having paid for a year and a half the Ramirez couple were now faced with foreclosure and inevitable eviction. Once foreclosure proceedings start the borrower loses all rights to it. Meanwhile they had somehow managed a buyer to pay $190,000 for the unit, which they had purchased for $211,500 in 2005. The selling price would not cover the $230,000 they owed to the bank. It was the same agonizing story with individual variations repeated in other instances also.