Do you know what your rights are if your landlord is in foreclosure and people show up at your door to try to evict you instead of him? What if they load all your crap onto a truck and lock you out? No? Neither did “Tabitha,” a renter whose landlord was in foreclosure and whose possessions were destroyed as movers kept illegally loading them onto and off trucks over and over again.
The nonsense began when attorneys for Citi Residential Lending (now CitiMortgage) obtained a court order to evict Tabitha’s landlord from the brownstone that he owned and was renting to Tabitha. To that end, the bank hired a Realtor and the sheriff’s office to evict the landlord. The Realtor, “Jax Realtors and REO Group,” knew that Tabitha and not her landlord lived in the property, according to the Chicago Reporter, but they decided to evict her anyway, (despite the fact that this is illegal in Illinois.)
When she called the company the day of her lockout, she said an employee agreed to let her in two days later at 10 a.m. Tabitha arrived at 9:45 a.m. with a brigade of minivans and cars with friends, some of whom had taken off work, ready to pack, load and move her things, despite the 33-degree temperatures outside. They waited two hours. She said Jax never showed up.
The next day, Tabitha walked into the West Side office of the Legal Assistance Foundation and briefed attorney Jennifer Payne on her case. Payne believed she could retrieve Tabitha’s belongings and get her some restitution.
Payne contacted Jax to see if the company was willing to negotiate. A company representative seemed agreeable and a date was set to meet at the apartment, Payne said. Jax officials did not show up for the second time and subsequently did not return her phone calls, Payne said. By the next afternoon, a truck from a different company was being loaded with Tabitha’s furnishings. Tabitha’s neighbor phoned and told Tabitha to hurry home. She arrived and called police. Some of her property was in the truck, some was still in the apartment. The rest was in a trashcan in the alley.
When police arrived, Tabitha showed her identification. The movers showed the officers their paperwork and called Jax Realtors and the move was stopped. According to the police report: “Complainant stated tenant home in foreclosure and contractor hired to clean building without notifying or allowing tenant to move out. Contractor returned property into residence, building resecured.” Four days later, movers were there again. Again, they left without the furnishings. By this time, the damage to Tabitha’s property was irreparable. The movers had damaged a fair amount of furniture to the point that Tabitha no longer wanted it.
When she learned that Jax owner Michael R. Fields called the Reporter’s office, Tuesday, April 29 at 10:46 p.m., to say she could get her things back from the apartment, Tabitha recoiled in disgust. “I don’t want that crap,” Tabitha said.
The Realtor denies that they ever stood Tabitha up, and blame Citi Lending’s attorneys for the mix-up. Citi said that Tabitha was given an opportunity to contest the eviction and didn’t. As the story went to print, Tabitha and her lawyer were settling with Citi Lending after they were contacted by the Chicago Reporter. They claim that they never received the letters sent by Tabitha’s lawyer.
“If [Jax] didn’t have a court order to evict Tabitha, what [they] should have done was gone back to the bank and say, ‘Bank, you don’t have an order to evict Tabitha,” said her lawyer.
The Reporter also has some tips for renters caught up in foreclosure. Remember, every state is different, so make sure that you understand the foreclosure laws in your area.
A Renter’s Nightmare [Chicago Reporter]
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We need to start holding faceless corporations criminally responsible for criminal acts. Isn’t removing her stuff without her knowledge, and without legal right, theft?
Wow, I had no idea these things could happen. Several years ago I
lived in an apartment, which I loved, that was foreclosed upon. The
landlord owned over 70 buildings, and from my knowledge, still does.
And he’s a tax attorney, so I’m assuming the foreclosure was some kind
of “shenaniganized” scheme that somehow he made out on.
We had plenty of notice, thick copies of the foreclosure documents were
delivered to each apartment. I was never evicted or anything, though
the other tenants moved out voluntarily. Nobody ever asked me to move
at all. I was just instructed to start paying my rent (same amount) to
the bank as of a certain date. I lived there with no landlord over a
whole winter. I had the phone number of a manager working for the bank
who was in charge of the property. Only had to talk to him once when
the furnace went out, to have him authorize charges for having the
furnace serviced.
I stayed there several months after new landlords bought the place
too… Until I found a place I wanted to move to. And only because the
new landlords had delusions of grandeur about how much they could
charge – they raised my rent 30%, couldn’t get the units filled at
their high prices, so they got nothing at all and wound up having to
sell the building after I moved out. But that’s another story.
Frankly, the bank was a better landlord than other landlords I’ve experienced!
But, I did have a year lease that was signed just a month or 2 before
the foreclosure, and this was back in 2002/2003, before banks were
inundated with too many foreclosed properties they can’t get rid of and
don’t want to manage.
@floraposte: Well, we know she’s having no Almond Joy.
@hamsangwich: I agree, they never arrest a business that doesn’t something illegal. Maybe they need to change that so that they CAN arrest a business. Some officer or employee gets to go to jail on behalf of the business for their crimes.
@SMSDHubbard:
Part of the danger signs of this last (and most?) housing bubble, which people were warning about YEARS ago, was the fact that mortgage payments were increasing at a rate far greater than rents, thus the gap between a mortgage payment and rent increased, making situations like landlords not being able to pay their mortgages more likely.
Regardless of what the legal status of all this is and who was right and wrong, why wouldn’t the heartless bastards just let her move her stuff out? It’s not her fault her Landlord lost the building. I don’t know how I’d handle it if this happened to me, but I guess my first reaction would have been to go to the police if people are holding my possessions against my will. I wonder why she didn’t involve the police sooner. Doesn’t that seem logical?
This is what guns are for.
@SMSDHubbard: If it was financed with an ARM, it’s possible that the interest rate went up so much that it’s no longer producing *enough* revenue . . .
A shotgun in hand is good preventative headache medicine. People would not be getting into my house, let alone touching my belongings if I knew I was absolutely right.
@agb2000: @campredeye: Seriously. If I found people moving my things out of my house without my permission or knowledge, they would be shown the business end of a USP .45 Tactical to drop my stuff until the authorities showed up.
@Marshfield: Or the movers were none too delicate with it.
Ah, yes, the funny, the inflammatory, and the self-righteous. Nothing like some good comments
was she the only tenant of this landlord? i wonder what happened to everyone else…
Re: how did he get foreclosed on if he was collecting rent.
I am currently renting my old house. I am “making money” on it, but the rent is less than the mortgage payments.
There are two gotchas that make that work:
1. I’m paying down principle on the loan. It forces me to save several hundred dollars a month.
2. I can depreciate the principle as a deduction on my taxes.
Clearly, if you don’t have any other source of income, you won’t be able to pay the principle, and thus won’t be able to make the payments, and thus will be foreclosed on.
@Alex7575:
How retarded…a pretty retarded comment about the word retarded.
No ifs and or buts, I’m going to be really anal about this.
Sphincter.
@mythago: No, but attacking someone else for asking a question that’s somewhat relevant (did she have expensive furniture and they were just kinda tossing it around, or was it crappy and falling apart anyway? Details are important)
@Alex7575: Oh, I understood the racist remark just fine. I think it’s pretty screwed up that you’re going to compare racism to discrimination against those of a lesser mental status, but hey.
Also, I guess that means your kid has a higher IQ than you, huh?