Was ex-American League MVP and admitted steroid abuser Jose Canseco too busy counting the money from his Major League Baseball tell-all books to remember to pay his mortgage? Nope. When the California market tanked, Canseco made “a mathematical decision” to walk away from his mortgage, says the Wall Street Journal.
“He made a mathematical decision and just let it go,” said Gregory Emerson, Mr. Canseco’s lawyer.
Mr. Canseco bought the 7,300-square-foot home in Encino, Calif., for nearly $2.8 million in 2005, according to public records. He transferred partial ownership to a trust last year, according to Mr. Emerson. That trust defaulted on mortgage payments in October, and foreclosure was recorded in February, public records show.
The house already had at least one lien placed on it, from the Internal Revenue Service, and a judgment stemming from a 2005 court ruling in which Mr. Canseco and his brother Ozzie were found liable for a 2001 brawl in a Miami Beach nightclub. Together, the liens and judgment totaled some $1.3 million, according to Mr. Emerson and Tina Cameron, Mr. Canseco’s real-estate agent.
“Given that there were liens on the house and the market had gone down, he made the decision to let it go,” Mr. Emerson said. He said that the decline in property values alone meant that Mr. Canseco’s equity in the house had fallen by about $1 million.
Mr. Canseco is currently promoting his second tell-all about steroid-use in Major League Baseball, and continues to assist federal agents who are investigating Roger Clemens for perjury, etc. Canseco told Inside Edition:
“I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else.”
“I decided to just let it go, but in most cases and most families, they have nowhere else to go,” he said
Home Run: Canseco Lets House Go Into Foreclosure [WSJ]
Jose Canseco: Walking Away from His Mortgage ‘Not Difficult Emotionally’ [WSJ]
(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)
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@LibertyReign: the generalizations from bladefist’s post (as i understand them) are that 1) everyone in ny is a liberal & 2) that liberals want taxes, taxes, taxes! rake that money in! HEEEEYAW!
& incidentally, my sarcasm radar is malfunctioning, so don’t shoot me if i read your post wrong. long day.
@rellog: he set up a trust. it’s near impossible to garnish a trust when the judgment is against the individual & you can’t sue the trust for the actions of the individual.
fun how that works, isn’t it?
@Bladefist: there’s many legitimate reasons that people have a right to your property. know this: it’s not very easy for a person to get a lien against real property – at least not in my state (it takes at least 3 trips to the courthouse). the exceptions are: tax liens (both property & income) & builder/contractor liens (which work much like a mechanic’s lien with a car).
should anyone have a right to liquidate your property? no, but they don’t (at least where i live). only a bank (or the town) can foreclose on you for non-payment. the rest of the liens are just a method to ensure future payment. getting the lien removed is as easy as paying your debt (or refinancing, or selling your home, or dying & having your estate liquidated).
as for your complaint about dues in perpetuity…it’s quite common. don’t like it? get elected to the HOA & change things – democracy at work.
@modenastradale: i cant do it! sorry!
@mac-phisto: yea. As i tried to say, i’m not real informed on the area of liens. I just dont like te sound of it
I dont want other people having to bail other people out, no no. But get it other ways. Go after their bank acount or something.
also, I dont think everyone in NY is liberal. Rudy was your mayor, so there is a couple of conservatives there. But my ‘generalization’ about liberals is based on liberal belief. It’s not that liberals love taxes, its they love more government programs, which, require more taxes to pay for. in my opinion, thats a safe generalization. its only an insult if you feel insulted. If you follow the liberal belief, you shouldnt be insulted.
I’m not trying to act like trai-dep. If I do, I apologize. I like my statements to be halfway thoughtout and intelligent. Although emotions can run high in a time like this (election time).
@Bladefist: for the record, i’m not a nyer. i’m a nutmegger. GWB’s real home state – not that i’m proud of that. in fact, i’m glad he moved to texas.
it’s funny you mention rudy – i was going to mention him in my last post, but then i realized that guy’s about as conservative as i am martian, so i decided to leave it out.
unfortunately, i think your ideas about “liberal beliefs” are…misinformed. imho, the gop & the dnc both love government programs – it’s just a matter of how they dish out the funds. tax breaks & private contracts are government programs just like social security & medicare. perhaps you feel our money is better spent in private hands b/c the private sector is more efficient. that’s fair. but don’t try to pass it off as something it’s not. money is money whether it’s diverted to state institutions or private organizations. they all like to spend it. hell, who doesn’t like spending someone else’s money?
The thing that irks with Conservatives is that they’re largely all talk, and their people eat it up with a spoon w/o checking things out independently. For example, check size of gov’t by employees or by spending under Reagan AND Bush. They both went up. WAY up.
It’s the hypocrisy that annoys, and that fellow well-meaning Americans that probably love this country as much as I do allow themselves to be fooled.
Bladefist: cool it with the ad hominem attacks. It cheapens you. I realize it’s uncomfortable to have your assumptions challenged, but don’t take it out on the guy helpfully holding the flashlight for you.
@mac-phisto: I need to take some classes in communication. I still have issues getting my point out. I understand under the current government, both parties, are increasing spending and government programs.
I’m not talk about what is, i’m talking about what should be. I’m talking about my belief system. A Conservative/Republican should be decreasing spending, decreasing government involvement, and decreasing government programs.
It’s easy to say they are all corrupt, or incompitient. But I’m willing to bet that its due to the bi-partisanship we have in this country, the blocks a lot of this. And if you want to get anything done, you must compromise.
If you take Ron Paul for example, which, by the way, I do not support, he would never get the things he wants done. He wants to get rid of the IRS. Well there is a lot of people involved in that, and all you need is a few people in congress opposed to that idea, and that idea is never going to happen.
Ron Paul has some great ideas, but unfortunately he is like the libertarian Obama. Too much change at once, in an unstable time. Thus making both of them, not good candidates. But thats a whole other debate.
Again, I don’t always support our republicans, I support the GOP’s stance on issues.
sorry for my grammar/spelling errors. Wow. More coffee is needed.
But, if the Republicans’ stance is belied by their actions, consistently, repeatedly and without shame, isn’t that worse than a party that doesn’t offer empty, lying promises? Just a bit?!
Especially when they don’t leap into loony things like Terry Schiavo, Iraq, Katrina, deficits, hypocritical boy-sexing, dollar-destroying fiscal policies, quadrupling of oil prices, (I could go on for ages)… to feed their base?
@Trai_Dep: which party is this you speak of that doesn’t offer empty, lying promises? i’ve yet to meet a party or a politician that wasn’t a liar & a thief.
& assuming you’re speaking of the democrats, remember that many of them have been pushing their own private stock of kool-aid over the past 8 years.
@Trai_Dep: Well its the same for both parties. It’s an assumption of mine, that liberal/democrat politicians dont always follow through with their parties idealogical, via lying, or just not caring.
I mean look at John Kerry. That guy would believe in whatever the poll told him to. I could use that as a weapon against liberals, but I dont. That guy is an idiot and was trying to do anything to get elected.
And you have people like spitzer, spitzers replacement, and 9 million other democrats who have also been apart of scandels.
Anyone who falls inline with their party and thinks it’s flawless is an idiot zealot. The definition of republican, conservatism, and maybe liberitarian, closely defines what I believe.
Now if all the politicans who claim to be that also fail in that regard, no, I don’t feel that it speaks to my party.
They have careers they must keep, and you know, I don’t trust half of them. They have no idea what it is like to be you or me. They haven’t put gas in their car for 20 years, they dont pay for insurance, they dont drive, they cook their own food. So I don’t expect much from them. And I don’t think actions of one person should speak about a whole party.
I will however go after party beliefs. And I’ll admit I’ve probably done a lot worse generalizing as well, but, I try to keep that at bay.
@mac-phisto: Exactly. When I argue politics, I argue belief systems. You cannot possibly think any of these high-up government people are reputable people who are out there upholding the beliefs of their associated party, on any side.
I like Bush, but I think its obvious he has deviated from party principles. Therefore he is not the poster boy for conservatism, but I find him efficient at his job.
I’m a Virginian facing foreclosure. Nowhere near Conseco’s income level but –though my income has taken a big recent hit– I have ample savings to pay my mortgage for a 3-4 years. Trouble is, I’m upside-down by about $200k on an interest-only loan. Not only do I not own the house, I will NEVER own the house. So technically, I leaning heavily to a ‘walkaway’.
This ain’t Califronia, Virginia! My question is deficiency judgments. If the bank manages to get only $800k of my $1m loan, they have the right to seek a judgment on me for the $200k short-fall. Also, I understand they have 5 years to do this. So far DJ’s are rare. But the banks are so inundated with foreclosure activity that it’s possible step 2 when they catch their breath will be pursuing the money they lost. That’s a big boulder to have hanging over your head. But my neighborhood looks bleak for a $1 million value to return to my home.
any insights, expertise on this area of the law?
thx