Foreclosure — Too Expensive to Defend a Home
January 21st, 2012
Every step of the gauntlet of owning a home and going through foreclosure, from qualifying for the financing to being given a sheriff sale, is tightly regulated at local, state and federal levels. Since all of these laws were ostensibly designed to shieldprotect buyers and property owners from corruption, the large amount of due diligence these laws generate serve mainly to confuse homeowners and encourage corrupt corporations to prey on them.
The foreclosure process itself is similar, although it is almost entirely determined by state laws. Debtors find themselves involved in a complicated judicial system just when they are most unable to pay for adequate legal representation.
There are really too many laws for the mortgage companies to follow to be able to generate and collect on a mortgage in accordance with every regulation at every level. While the majority of lenders are fairly strict about complying with such regulations, the subprime mortgage boom allowed fly-by-night lenders to originate one bad mortgage after another and the richest financial corporations could not get enough.