Housing Group In Lake County Threatening To Halt Foreclosure Auction

July 20th, 2008

A housing group in Lake County is threatening to halt foreclosure auctions by taking legal action. The County Council supported the proposal of the group of temporarily putting on hold house foreclosures, so as to give more time to the borrowers to try to save the houses that are their homes.

Sheriff Roy Dominguez contends that he is under legal obligation to follow out court orders and oversee the auction sale of foreclosed houses. As such his hands are tied. He and his office cannot do anything contrary to the law. Lake County Judge John Pera is sympathetic with the victims but he is reluctant to move away from the legal tradition.

ACORN representative of North West Indiana, Eric Weathersby said that this is not the real picture. The Sheriff has the power to postpone foreclosures, if he so wishes. ACORN or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is spread across the nation advocating the cause of the middle to modest income group. Weathersby argues that the Sheriff is giving more importance to the revenue that flows in from foreclosures and does not want to interrupt that. For each foreclosure process the office of the Sheriff realizes $200 from the lenders. Right now the foreclosure kitty contains $930,000.

Weathersby threatens that if the Sheriff does not co-operate then his group will take legal action to enforce moratorium on foreclosure sales in Lake County. He further adds that ACORN has been working satisfactorily with the Sheriff’s departments in many other states. Foreclosures have been postponed and the victims are getting time to recuperate their strength. The issue at stake is not just houses of bricks and mortar but homes with cooking fires burning and children playing.

Moratoriums have worked successfully in Philadelphia County said Ian Phillips of the Pennsylvania branch of ACORN. The county sheriff has postponed the April sales for another two months for those houses that are occupied by owners.

Meanwhile ACORN is organizing ‘Conciliation Conferences’ – meetings between the house owners, lenders and judges of the county. The result has been positive. 300 loans have been modified to more affordable terms with less interest (fixed) and more time period. Preference is given to those borrowers who can meet basic needs like food and utilities and yet have something left over for the house.

Since October 2006 there has been over 4,600 foreclosures – it being a part of the nHousing Group In Lake County Threatening To Halt Foreclosure Auctionational crisis.

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