As bad as we need a home and restoration here in Columbus, Ohio, why are the Columbus, Ohio media so quiet about it?

If you want to buy a home, move to Cleveland, Ohio they are starving for some business. They are selling homes dirt cheap, $1.00 dollar. Columbus, Ohio's top leaders are faking and pretending, like there was never a predatory tsunami that ever hit this town.

I guess they want to "appear" as though we are not in a rut; all of Ohio is top in the nation in foreclosures. Columbus, Ohio are selling our houses like it's prime ribs from a high priced store for the wealthy, knowing we need a dollar deal too. These "Big Wigs" here Columbus, including the media, really got it bad. If we want resolution and restoration we will have to leave and go to Cleveland, Ohio.

The Plain Dealer News mentions a list, names of all whom was involved in on the fraudulent scams that no news here in Ohio, especially Columbus, Ohio media will NOT mention, and we know why, our legal systems were involved in on this @!*# act.

Now, the Top Leaders, in our State is hoping someone will buy the homes in Cleveland, Ohio at a rock bottom price of $1.00 to help bring the communities back and prop up the economy. Even if Columbus, Ohio was in on this dollar plan...they would strip us again...put the money in their pockets, and pretend as though they are paying debt they put us in.

You've got to read this article:

FINANCIAL COUNSELORS can't keep up with the calls for help from borrowers in trouble

United Way's First Call for Help, reached at 2-1-1, is the first contact for a counseling network launched by the county early last year. Operators took 636 foreclosure calls in December, but have handled as many as 1,481 in a month. They get off the phone with one caller, only to find another one waiting.

United Way refers the callers to a half-dozen small nonprofit agencies. The agencies try to help borrowers renegotiate with lenders or get new mortgages.

One agency, Neighborhood Housing Services, has only five counselors to serve 50 to 65 borrowers who phone each day. The wait for an appointment can be three weeks.

The county pays for the counseling with up to $1 million a year in federal and county money and donations. But $1 million is not nearly enough to keep pace with the demand for help.
"The counselors and the agencies are bursting at the seams," says Mark Wiseman, who heads the program.

CONSIDER THIS: More than 120 houses in Cleveland are being offered to the city for a buck apiece because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development can't find other buyers.

HUD foreclosed on the houses because they had federally insured mortgages. The homes have been on the market for more than six months with no takers. All told, the federal agency owns more than 1,000 houses in Cuyahoga County, two-thirds of them in Cleveland.

Lenders are stuck with thousands more unwanted properties and are willing to unload many of them for pennies on the dollar.
A California investor, shopping via the Internet, bought a four-family house in Slavic Village for $1. Texas investors scooped up 90 houses -- primarily in Cleveland -- for prices as low as $750.

During the first nine months of last year, nearly 1,000 parcels in Cleveland traded hands for less than $10,000 each.

What does this mean for home values? While it is too early to say just how far they will drop, the trends aren't promising.

Sales of single-family houses fell 8 percent last year, according to the Northern Ohio Regional Multiple Listing Service, which covers Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Lorain, Medina and Ashtabula counties.

The average sales price dipped more than 4 percent.
"The market is tanking," says Dave Sarver, a real estate agent who specializes in lender-owned property. "We're giving houses away."

Gus Chan/The Plain Dealer The crisis has spread to the suburbs. This Solon home was in a sheriff's sale last year.

Today's package concludes a five-part Plain Dealer series.

NO PUBLIC INSTITUTION in the region has been more overwhelmed than Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

The court dealt with a record 13,968 foreclosure filings last year. The county's previous record? 13,274 in 2006.

For years, cases routinely languished in the county system while the houses sat vacant and mayors clamored for a speedier process.
One case, involving a house in Cleveland, dragged on for eight years. A neighbor's complaint about the delay exposed a system used by court officials to hide a backlog of nearly 13,000 cases. The Ohio Supreme Court eventually ordered the county system to keep better records.
To move cases faster, the county has hired 30 employees at a cost of $1.3 million a year. To accommodate more workers, the county also spent $900,000 to renovate additional offices.

The court now takes an average of less than 10 months to wrap up cases.

Even so, lawyers in search of a quicker ruling have filed more than 700 cases in federal court in Cleveland. Foreclosures may be filed in federal court if the lender or borrower is from another state.

But a ruling late last year by U.S. District Judge Christopher Boyko could stall or halt foreclosure proceedings across the nation.

Boyko dismissed 14 foreclosure lawsuits brought by Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. because the bank had failed to produce the paperwork to prove that it owned the mortgages. The ruling appears to have had a chilling effect. In the last six weeks, no foreclosures have been filed in federal courts in northern Ohio.

The rulings could have far-reaching consequences if mimicked in Ohio's county courts, where most of Ohio's foreclosures are filed. State Attorney General Marc Dann is asking county courts to follow Boyko's lead.

Producing the paperwork could be difficult and time consuming for lenders such as Deutsche Bank, a trustee for investment pools or bundles of mortgages sold on Wall Street, according to Cleveland State University Law Professor Kathleen Engel.

Engel, who has studied the sale of mortgage-backed securities, noted last year that the lending industry transfers information electronically, but the law, requires paper.

"This is uncharted territory," she says. "Anybody who says they know how this is going to play out is lying, or at least exaggerating.

Click below on more about this article.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/01/the_foreclosure_crisis_what_it.html


There was a comment that was sent to me concerning my article "The Untouchable Home Foreclosure Case" I believe this comment would bring good taste to this story...

Dear Wendy,

I have no doubt whatsoever, that some judicial corruption DOES exist, particularly in urban areas. But I am slow to shout corruption absent some very REAL supporting evidence.

One rather fascinating detail that I have NOT yet posted regarding the Ohio Federal Court decisions, is that it seems to be HONEST Federal Judges appointed by REPUBLICANS who are dismissing all of the cases. Senior Judge David DOWD is the notable EXCEPTION. He was appointed by President CARTER.

By contrast, there are a number of Federal Judges appointed by President CLINTON who seem to be continuing to grant decrees in foreclosure and allowing the sale of people's homes, even where the plaintiff CANNOT PROVE OWNERSHIP.

The pattern is far too STARK to be a coincidence. Perhaps these Judges are not dismissing cases because they DISAGREE with the opinions written by BOYKO, ROSE, O'MALLEY, DOWD, as well as five other Republican appointed Judges. Or perhaps they are just too LAZY to read the complaints and find the defects, granting default judgments without ever scrutinizing the pleadings. Perhaps, as you have suggested, these are amongst the CORRUPT Judges. I certainly cannot discount this possibility. It would certainly be very consistent with what I have seen here in Pennsylvania, where there seem to be many corrupt Democratic Judges on the bench.

But I think that we should remain focused on what is factual and readily PROVEN. Until defendants start SHOWING UP and making their arguments, I think that we need to be careful about tossing about charges of official corruption.

I TOO, would like to energize and empower defendants to make a solid defensive case. When this is properly done, we can get a little better CLARITY as to whether the Judges are still going to side with the plaintiffs when the law is clearly on the defendant's side.

Separately, have you considered the possibility the that foreclosure orders in YOUR CASE might actually be VOID??

Why don't you send me copies of the pleadings and orders? IN EVERY INSTANCE WHERE SOMEONE HAS SENT ME DOCUMENTS, I HAVE IDENTIFIED INSTANCES OF FABRICATION AMONGST THE DOCUMENTS USED IN SUPPORT OF THE FORECLOSURE.

Even if you have exhausted regular appeals, you may be able to collaterally attack the orders and judgments if the court lacked jurisdiction or if you were deprived of your due process rights. Beating the mortgage servicer, even belatedly, might be an even more satisfying story!