Are the Bank Foreclosure “Moratoriums” More PR than Real?

[Hannah Bell]

Bank of America announced a foreclosure halt in all 50 states; JP Morgan and GMAC have stopped in 23 judicial foreclosure states.

Or have they? Florida is a judicial foreclosure state, and local reports suggest the banks are still moving forward with foreclosures. Note the inconsistencies between the statements of the bank employees versus the action on the ground. From the Fort Myers News Press:.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., along with some smaller lenders, have announced that they were holding off on court-based foreclosures…

But in Lee County, court records show both of those banks have continued to get court judgments allowing the sale of mortgages on foreclosed houses at public auction.

That’s despite statements from both banks that they stopped doing that about two weeks ago.

April Charney, a Jacksonville-area legal aid attorney who’s an expert on foreclosure issues, said she’s hearing similar reports from around the country.
She scoffed at the banks’ protests that they didn’t intend for the judgments to be issued.

“It’s a farce,” she said. “We’re all being played...”

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/are-the-bank-foreclosure-moratoriums-more-pr-than-real.html

[tularetom]

1. “It’s a farce,” she said. “We’re all being played...”

I think that sentence just about sums it up.

Not just about foreclosures either.

[scarletwoman]

2. Indeed. Pretty much applies across the board... (nt)

[Hannah Bell]

3. i tend to agree. about so many things. here's another interesting take:

What the bankers are going is extortion: "give us more money to lose or your economy gets destroyed." In 2008, the government made it clear that they did not have the stomach to risk a much deeper, but shorter, downturn to hold the bankers accountable. That bailout, as well as related programs, such TLGP, which guaranteed bank bonds through 2012, made it financially and cognitively harder for the politicians avoid future bailouts. (Consider how hard it is for people to walk away from a losing investment.) Once then-Senator Obama voted for TARP, he became beholden to the bankers whether he knew it or not.

The bankers have every incentive to allow or create more "crises" so that the taxpayers will shift more of the banks' losses on to the public. The endless media campaign justifying past bailouts, and warning of the risk of discouraging future bailouts, are intended to prepare the American people for this fact.

There are two historical precedents that may apply here: Barbary pirates and the Cold War. In both cases, the other side's demands for endless concessions were stopped by showing the other side that they had something to lose and that American people were willing to sacrifice to make sure that they did lose. Unless modern Americans are willing to sacrifice to show that the bankers can lose everything, the endless bailouts will continue.

If early 19th Century Americans had, instead of deciding "millions for defense, one cent for tribute," continued to pay the Barbary pirates protection money and allowed them to abduct our citizens as White slaves, we would still be sacrificing to bailout the pirates and their business model. Every time they needed more money, they would create another "piracy crisis."

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/10/the-worlds-financial-system-has-become-unstable.html

[Honeycombe8]

4. I would think they want the Repubs to win big in a couple of weeks. Saying they're holding off...

on foreclosures wouldn't seem to me to further that cause, since it would make people feel better about the economy. That helps Democrats.

Repubs would be less likely to legislate more regulation or enforce it.

Maybe they meant they were going to hold off on filing NEW foreclosure actions. Or maybe the judgments, which were already in progress, just automatically got entered.

I work in a law office. Dealing with courts and clerks is not easy. It's hard to stop the wheels of justice, once started. You can't just send a letter or give them a call. You have to file another pleading in the case, I think, and there are structured deadlines for doing that.

What will be telling is...once they get a judgment, do they file it with the county clerks. That's the next step in the judgment process, and how you prevent the sale of the house w/o the judgment being paid. If they do THAT, THAT is intentional. No one is making them do that.