Wow, this is getting wild. Admittedly, the Cook County sheriff has taken a firm stand in the past on foreclosure evictions, but this is a more sweeping action in the past. Telling the banks that admitted they used improper affidavits but now insist that everything is fine isn’t good enough is a bold more. At this point, this action an outlier. But if further doubts arise about the propriety of bank foreclosure proceedings, will other local law enforcement officials fall in line?
From CNBC (hat tip reader Darby Shaw):
Two of the largest U.S. mortgage servicers have said they will resume home foreclosures, but a big-city sheriff has news for them: he won’t enforce their foreclosure evictions.
The sheriff for Cook County, Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago, said on Tuesday he will not enforce foreclosure evictions for Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase and Co. and GMAC Mortgage/Ally Financial until they prove those foreclosures were handled “properly and legally.”
Bank of America, the largest U.S. mortgage servicer, and GMAC, on Monday both announced rollbacks from their foreclosure moratoriums.
The announcement by Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart comes after weeks of damaging accusations of shoddy paperwork that may have caused some people to be illegally evicted from their homes.
“I can’t possibly be expected to evict people from their homes when the banks themselves can’t say for sure everything was done properly,” Dart said in the statement.
“I need some kind of assurance that we aren’t evicting families based on fraudulent behavior by the banks. Until that happens, I can’t in good conscience keep carrying out evictions involving these banks,” he added.
Bank of America, GMAC and JPMorgan Chase along with their subsidiaries, make up around a third of the roughly 3,700 eviction orders filed at the Cook County sheriff’s office, the statement said.
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I am a bit fan of the Dart man, who just happens (oh, the coincidences!) to be running for the next mayor of Chicago.
A well orchestrated piece of theater that will play well in this town.
Top that one, Bankster Rahm.
I haven’t heard, but has Dart really announced? If so, adios Rahm!!
Yeah, there’s a guy who knows how to get
elected. Well done! (It will be interesting
to see how the hammer comes down on Mr. Dart
from the powers that be.)
Well electoral politics aside ^ it would seem that XE might just have a new niche to fill…neo pinkertons. That would be par for course in the way the banks have played the links so far..
Skippy…I smell an IPO opportunity…
I will send an election contribution for Mr. Dart.
piling on to previous comments here, but this is typical of much of the recent foreclosure controversy. There’s an election in three weeks. A poor man’s vote counts just as much as a rich man’s. The banks don’t get to vote at all. Dart is running for reelection (and will win easily). Once the votes are counted and the winners take (or, more likely, return to) office, let’s see how much they care about “the people” vs their big money supporters like the banks.
Well, if the people intend to sit passively and wait for noblesse oblige or human decency or even simple public interest professionalism (which is always supposed to temper the letter of the law with equitability; that’s part of why bureaucracy is such an evil in itself), then they’re likely to get the worst.
During the Depression lots of neighborhoods organized to resist foreclosures. They’d gather at the site, block paths, pick up furniture which had been removed and put it back inside. This has the healthy effects of further demoralizing cops who already weren’t enthusiastic, and intimidating hired thugs.
So I’d take any example of a cop saying something like this as a good start, but the people also have to be active in “making him do it”, as FDR might have said.
For example, if he has campaign volunteers who are supporting him because of things like this, they should also use the opportunity to turn the campaign drive into an anti-foreclosure organizing drive. They should openly say “We’re organizing to oversee this promise and ensure he keeps it. Surely he can’t object, since it’s his own promise.”
(To expand on that, every grassroots campaign activist everywhere should be familiar with how Obama’s first action upon winning election was to destroy his grass roots organization by having it subsumed into the Party.
Every activist going forward should always expect such treachery, and therefore should organize not “for” a candidate but “in concurrence” with him. But they should never let him or any party hacks have any control over the organization. And they should be ready for the usual post-election assaults.)
Machiavellian kill that which breaths life into it…as it is an anchor upon its neck.
Good for Sheriff Dart. It may be established law, but it seems wrong anyway for taxpayers to subsidize banksters’ enforcement, a bit like the FBI policing DVD pirates instead of Wall Street. Hopefully this will be a trend, and the troops will finally refuse to fire on peasants as they storm the lord’s castle.
Bankers should remember that they are tolerated, not liked. And the grievances against the government backed counterfeiting cartel are real, not imagined.
We can and should resolve this peacefully. I suggest the bankers read Deuteronomy 15 and consider that the population is long overdue for debt forgiveness.
And a large distribution of debt and interest free Greenbacks from the US Treasury to the general population would fix us all including the banks. We don’t need stimulus, we need compensation.
One could say so what else is new whenever there is a downturn the bankers are hated, it is always their fault. What many people here seem to want is to bring Andrew Jackson back since he slapped one bank down, and fixed others with the Specie Circular. Clearly Obama is no Andrew Jackson. Note that since Jackson got shafted by banks before he became president he felt that all banks were at best a necessary evil.
Not a good idea.
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http://www.livescience.com/technology/etc/101019-china-halts-shipments-tech-crucial-minerals.html
Yes! If they have any sense at all, local law enforcement around the nation will fall in line with Cook County’s justifiable act of defiance. This is set to become a states/localities versus all other entities conflict.
This is will force the banks to go to court, but will they when they have nothing with which to make their case? I love that this is happening in Stink Bama’s back yard. How do you like that bit of change, Mr. President.
“Cook County’s justifiable act of defiance”
We really have fallen far when we think of a sheriff insisting that the law be observed as an act of defiance. In these times your slip (?) is quite understandable.
Actually, Dart stopped foreclosure actions months ago.
He’s just re-announcing it in heightened media scrutiny.
Again.
I think this is the fourth time he’s announced it.
This is huge. It just might be a Sid Hatfield moment.
This is a prudent response. The assumption that banks have their act together is no more.
Who cares about his motives? I’m a realist; I’m into results.
I agree. Not only is there nothing wrong with “pandering to the voters”, it’s what elected officials should do! Elected officials work for the voters, not the other way around.
The best thing in my view is how he’s pushing them to verify these foreclosures that have already gone through the court system by requesting that the banks provide an affidavit saying they had examined and verified each foreclosure.
“He said such an affidavit would give him the confidence to carry out evictions again because it is illegal, a misdemeanor, to supply his office false information. He noted attorneys who signed such documents also would have to be careful because signing documents they know are false could put their law licenses at risk.”
http://www.thegrio.com/news/chicago-area-sheriff-halts-foreclosure-evictions.php
I wonder if any lawyers will actually be willing to do that.
Gives new meaning to the term “Sanctuary City”.
The banks were already filing false affadavits, surely they’ll just robosign one more for Sheriff Dent?
On the other hand, that will give him clear standing to arrest them, which he might not have had before.
It’s a bit scary, in a sense…
What to think of the institutions of a country whose police forces refuse to enforce collectively agreed upon laws and judgements?
Not saying he’s wrong to do so in this particular case, but it seems to me that this mindset amounts to a state of anarchy, rather than that of a state of law.
“the institutions of a country whose police forces refuse to enforce collectively agreed upon laws and judgements?”…
The courts seem to be in adjournment, time and monies will dispel our anguish.
“but it seems to me that this mindset amounts to a state of anarchy”…
To whom do you accuse…define.
Meanwhile, our former sheriff, DAVE REICHERT, now a U.S. Senator, has two UN-NOTARIZED Sheriff’s sales on his record…..REPUBLICAN, of course.
“Robo-signing”- what a ruse- it’s just a distraction from the real fraud. The banks are not the real party in interest or holders in due course because they do not possess the ORIGINAL note- that is the real reason why they have no right to foreclose-people are waking up to the fraud and they are scurrying around to regroup to re-dupe. Good for the Sheriff, he should demand “evidence” not assurance- he is one of the most powerful “elected” officials in the county.
Sheriff Dart has more balls than Obama.
The most likely way that this nation will be saved from predatory capitalism is at the local level rather than the national.
Wonder what Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel’s position on this action by the sheriff will be?
I seem to remember that Rahm, a former partner at Wasserstein Perella, was particularly effective at fundraising from private equity funds and hedge funds.
Sheriffs arise everywhere in America. This is your chance to take your office back.It is lawfully yours.The time is now to bring these criminal banksters to justice beginning at the local level.So let it be!
even asking for the note won’t nelp tnw banks as this plays out. When you signed the application, it became a promissory note (it becomes money by law of nations in bankruptcy) they then change the note into a securities intsrament by illegally marking marking “paid to the order of” on it. Right there it is no longer a promissory note. It is in fact a mortgagd backed security! Which is then deposited into a demand deposit account with the borrowers name on it. Also keep in mind, that according to Modern Money Mechanics published by the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, that banks cannot loan any of their depositors money, nor their own money, nor their own notes or reserves. That note/ now secjrities instrament is then sold to another bank for the amount of the loan and deposited into the DDA. Tnen through the magic of fractional reserve banking, the deposited securities intrument suddenly becomes up to 27 times more than it was worth! ( these are called derivitives) through these newly aquired reserves, the seller of the house, builder and anyone else involved with the alleged loan is paid off and all the while the bank……….lent you nothing. Ot is the borrowers name only on the note. The bank never signs anything. If they did, that would make them obligated to loan out of their reserves or their deposits which according to their own laws is illegal. I say….show me the LOAN! They can’t and never will. Just like they cannot produce the original not in its original form which was a promissory note. But now is altered (money changers) from a note to a securities instrument illegally. No one wons a note…….there is no more promissary note at least in its original form. The banks are totally evil and the people are reduced to a slave paying out their own sweat equity for something that has already been paid for over and over and over again.
God bless you Sheriff Dart. Cook County Sheriff is the RIGHT officer of the people. He knows the secret of the world bank or banks that is trying to get all American properties to their hands then all American people will be slave to them again.
Americans, we need to understand that the world bank or banks and the IRS are partner to take all what we have. If we have nothing left, who will take control the world.
Dart is committing civil contempt, just like his predessesor Sheehan… WHAT THE HELL, is he a JUDGE-NO, he has no right to not follow a lawful order in hand. Yet he knows sheehan simply got a slap on the wrist, so why not ACT LIKE GOD!!! If you want to speak of the law is the law, he has no rights, he SHALL(Mandatory – ILL Legislature) to do the eveiction. He’s a civil servant and must abide by the LAW and the orders in hand, He has absolutely NO DISCRETION!!!!
UNBELIEVABLE!!!