Foreclosure deeds recorded in the past week… vacation’s over

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179 sheriff’s deeds were filed with the Cuyahoga County Recorder’s Office in the past week (January 7 through January 11).

This total does not include 119 vacant lots taken (or taken back) by the City of Cleveland’s Land Bank.

Here’s who filed five or more:

Deutsche Bank (26)
Wells Fargo (23)
US Bank (20)
Department of HUD (18)
Federal National Mortgage Assn (10)
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (9)
Bank of New York (7)
Lasalle Bank (5)

(Previous week.)

Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo are among the 21 mortgage lenders and securitizers named in the City of Cleveland’s public nuisance lawsuit, filed Thursday. US Bank, the Bank of New York and Lasalle Bank are not.

New York Times story on the lawsuit this morning.

P.S. The lawyers and Court TV obsessives among us can get a free download here of CSU law professor Kathleen Engel’s 2005 paper, “Do Cities have Standing? Redressing the Externalities of Predatory Lending”, published in the Connecticut Law Review. Among other things, the paper discusses “public nuisance” as a possible basis for city claims against predatory lenders. (Thanks, Frank Ford.)

Christmas week foreclosure stats

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Well, we didn’t get a holiday from foreclosures during Christmas week, but it looks like most of the mortgage bankers’ lawyers decided to slack off on their final paperwork.

Only 81 sheriff’s deeds were filed with the Cuyahoga County Recorder’s Office last week (December 24 through December 28).

Here’s who filed five or more of them:

Department of HUD (15)
Bank of New York (12)
US Bank (9)
Deutsche Bank (7)
Wells Fargo (5)
Federal National Mortgage Assn (5)
Citibank (5)

(Previous week.)

Unfortunately, the “foreclosure bar” was taking no holiday break across the street in the Justice Center.

At the Christmas Eve Sheriff’s sale, 163 properties actually went up for auction and 138 were sold. (The other 24 were “not sold for want of bidders”, meaning that nobody offered the minimum two-thirds of their appraised value).

This morning, the Sheriff’s Office is capping off 2007 with 158 more properties on the auction block.

And moving right along toward another busy year, the folks upstairs at Common Pleas Court took in 269 new foreclosure filings last week.

But we don’t need a Foreclosure Holiday because, you know, Tom Moyer’s plan will get them all into mediation, once the judges and the Bar Association get all the details worked out. Which will be, as the PD assures us, “as soon as possible.”

Happy New Year, everybody.

P.S. Since Chief Justice Moyer announced his foreclosure mediation initiative on November 8, there have been 1,297 additional sheriff’s deeds (i.e. finalized foreclosures) filed with the Cuyahoga County Recorder, and 2,251 new foreclosure cases filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

Just in case you’re counting.

CNN Money: “Where Cleveland went wrong”

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Another long foreclosure crisis article. No new insights, but here’s some neglected recent history:

Cleveland tried to enact local anti-predatory lending ordinances in 2002, but national lenders then abandoned the market, according to Mark Wiseman, who heads the Cuyahoga County Foreclosure Prevention Program, which is part of the county treasurer’s office.

One bank representative, speaking under condition of anonymity, said the ordinances would have put local lending criteria well above and beyond the national standards. The lenders wanted no part of that.

Wiseman said banking lobbyists got the state legislature to nullify the local ordinances. Until this year, Ohio was one of only two states that did not include mortgage borrowers in their consumer protection statutes. And when the state passed anti-predatory lending laws in 2006, the punitive damages part of the law was gutted during the lame duck legislative session at the end the year.

“Under condition of anonymity.” I’ll bet. This is not a good moment for a banker to admit he thinks the “national standards” for mortgage lending in 2002 were just fine.

Foreclosures recorded in the last week

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178 sheriff’s deeds were filed with the Cuyahoga County Recorder’s Office in the past week (November 5 through November 9).

Here’s who filed five or more of them:

Deutsche Bank (25)
US Bank (18)
Dept of HUD (17)
Wells Fargo (13)
Federal National Mortgage Assn (9)
HSBC Bank (8)
Bank of New York (7)
Lasalle Bank (7)
Homecomings (5)

(Previous week.)

ODB: “Foreclosure Crisis: Here, Let Me Draw You a Picture”

Excellent long post at Ohio Daily Blog yesterday about the mortgage crisis, the coming wave of ARMS resets, etc. I’m really tempted to lift Jeff’s tsunami graphic, but will resist. Go read.

(Cross-posted from Cleveland Diary.)