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The Illinois Bankers Association opposed the plan, saying that Dart "was elected to uphold the law and to fulfill the legal duties of his office, which include serving eviction notices."

The association said Dart could be found in contempt of court for ignoring court eviction orders.

"The reality is that by ignoring the law and his legal responsibilities, he is carrying out 'vigilantism' at the highest level of an elected official," it said. "The Illinois banking industry is working hard to help troubled homeowners in many ways, but Sheriff Dart's declaration of 'martial law' should not be tolerated."

Dart was undeterred Thursday.

"I think the outrage on my part with them [is] that they could so cavalierly issue documents and have me throw people out of homes who have done absolutely nothing wrong," Dart said. "They played by all the rules.
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"I told them, 'You send an agent out, you send somebody out that gives me any type of assurance that the appropriate person is in the house, I will fulfill the order.'

"When you're blindly sending me out to houses where I'm coming across innocent tenant after innocent tenant, I can't keep doing this and have a good conscience about it."

After the courts order him to resume his foreclosures, I am sure he will become "more thorough" and only do one every day or two. I think legally he can require the banks to actually do their job and identify who the residents are before he evicts them.

Bureaucracy can sometimes be a good thing.

@shorty63136: To clarify the "these people have done nothing wrong" comment, Dart is talking about people renting homes that have been foreclosed on, and who have not been alerted by the owner of the property.

Fuck Yeah!!!!

@shorty63136:

"...throw people out of homes who have done absolutely nothing wrong," Dart said. "They played by all the rules.".

Except, you know, PAYING YOUR MORTGAGE. Nothing wrong? I might be crazy but to me, not paying bills you agreed to pay IS WRONG!

I'm not sure you can tell from the post, but the reason he has halted the evictions is because of all the renters he's tossing out. He goes to homes and condos and finds out that the owner doesn't live there and that the renters have never been given notice of the eviction and the banks seeking the foreclosure have not done their due diligence to determine who is living in the building.

The sheriff wrote this [www.suntimes.com] in the Sun Times today to explain.

@Chris Walters:

Oh, well that makes more sense. I appologize for my misplaced rant then. I assumed he was talking about actual homeowners.

This man is no vigilante ... he is a decent human being!

Isn't it a legal requirement that the banks verify who is actually living in the property and notify them?

The original article states that:

"But some landlords disappear without notifying tenants, or tenants may be tossing out eviction notices in the mail without realizing what they are, said Linda Koch, president of the Illinois Bankers Association."

Um, what the heck are you mailing the eviction notices in that people would be throwing them away?

I don't necessarily think that what he is doing is right or wrong, but it does highlight the reality that ultimately those who have to do the actual "dirty work" still have a choice in whether they listen to those who issue orders or not.

It's funny how we place such an emphasis on what the "law" says, but the courts have no power unless the actual law ENFORCERS are willing to comply. Case in point, President Andrew Jackson after learning off a Supreme Court decision basically said "that's great" and then went and purposely not enforce the judges' ruling.

If the current housing market continues down this path, I think we shouldn't be surprise to hear more and more law officials who will purposely ignore the court orders in order to abide to their consciences.

this story makes me happy - in the sense that at least someone is being responsible. It's true, you can't kick the tenants out like this because the owner defaulted. They have rights. And you can't keep the sheriff busy running around doing the bank's work to figure out whether the person living at these houses is an owner or a tenant.

@lifestar: Actually, he is enforcing the law, but he's also making sure that the banks follow the law to the strictly interpreted letter. So, if they didn't provide sufficient notice to the occupants (i.e. renters), he won't enforce the eviction and the bank will have to start the process over again. It's like the DMV, make one small technical mistake and you go to the back of the line.

This is complete and total BS. The Sheriff wasn't enacted to decide what the law is or to make policy decisions. His job is to enforce the law, including court orders, whether he likes it or not. Things like this, if not very quickly squashed, set dangerous precedents. What if the Sheriff next decides that he doesn't think it should be illegal to drink and drive, or to steal stuff worth less than $100? He needs to be removed from office for this, as it is wholly unacceptable. It sucks that people are getting kicked out of rental property, but it's not the Sheriff's job to make a moral judgment that it's wrong. That is the Legislatures job. I realize this guy is on the front lines and sees the destruction, but if he can't take the heat of the job, maybe it's time to find a new line of work. This kind of vigilante justice sickens me and requires swift and firm action to squash.

God damned HEROIC.

@Pylon83:

Yeah OK Hitler.

@ARP:
Technical compliance with the law is not his call to make. The banks go to the court and get an eviction order. It is the court system's job to make sure that the bank complied with everything before they issue the eviction order. This simply isn't the Sheriff's job, and it's completely ridiculous.

@Pylon83:
So you're going to bankroll the hours put in by the additional Sheriff's Deputies they'll need to hire to handle all these pointless visits to rented homes?

@Pylon83: You don't get it. He is doing his job; it's the banks that aren't doing theirs. The legal requirement is that tenants be notified before the eviction. That's not happening. In some cases he's pointed out to banks that the tenants haven't been notified, and the banks have simply added the tenants to the court order without notifying them. If the banks aren't following the rules for a legal eviction, why should he carry it out?

Being that this is Chicago, did someone at the Bankers Association forget to make their payoff to the sheriff's department this month?

Sounds to me like Linda Koch, president of Illinois Bankers Association, should carry out several of the evictions herself. As should all of the bankers sitting behind desks these days. It might make them a tad more open-minded to the concept of mortgage renegotiation.

@YourTechSupport:
My point is simply that this is not his call to make. People want to make moral or economic judgments on his conduct without considering whether or not he actually has the power to do this. He doesn't. If we allow elected officials to take power that they are not granted by the Constitution (state or local), or statutes enacted in accordance with such, it will begin a breakdown of ordered government. What the Sheriff is doing is not something that he is legally allowed to do. His job, the job he was elected to do, was to ENFORCE the law, not to interpret it.

@Pylon83: Looks like grandpa's been drinking again

@Pylon83: As was pointed out earlier, the Illinois legislature did take action. Under the Illinois Compiled Statutes, the banks are required to give tenants notice so that the innocent are not punished for the malfeasance of their landlords. Instead, banks have either added tenants' names to foreclosure proceedings without giving notice to the tenants (similar to me filing suit against you, not notifying you, and taking a default judgement) or ignored the tenants altogether, effectivley treating them like squatters. Sheriff Dart is simply insisting that the banks follow the law before he enforces its consequences.

Thanks for the angry, ill-informed rant, though. Next time, as they say on www.fark.com, RTFA.

@DallasPath: They probably have the landlords name on them instead of the renter's so they think it's junk, or they can't find their landlord for whatever reason, so they toss it.

Being an urban Chicago renter myself, I must say I am quite pleased with Sheriff Dart's actions.

Renters are not responsible for their landlord not paying the mortgage, and should not be evicted when they have maintained their lease agreements. If the banks are allowed to take possession of the building then all current leases should be enforced, and failure on the bank's part to do so should be actionable in civil courts.

@Pylon83: He is enforcing the law, though. The law requires sufficient notice by the lenders of a foreclosure and eviction, and he seems to think this isn't happening. Is it? That's not for me to say. If everything is in order, burn him at the stake. Until we can prove that, why don't we side with the little guy?

I love that the guy is doing this, simply because it is a big problem lately that landlords stop paying their mortgages, and then it leaves the renters holding the bag when the home is foreclosed on. It has been a big problem in DC as well, so I hope that someone over there does what this sheriff is doing.

@Pylon83: Well, checks and balances. His job is to enforce the law. If the law is not being followed, by the banks, by the courts, he can't comply. If the courts are pushing through paperwork that normally wouldn't have gone through, well, guess what, back to start, get the paperwork in order first.

@DallasPath: Probably in a bank envelope that's not their bank. If I receive mail from, say, 5th/3d, it goes right into the trash can, because it's not my bank, and so it must be junk. Anything important will be registered.

@Pylon83: Illinois law requires that renters be notified that their residence is in foreclosure and they will be evicted in 120 days. Renters are not being given this notice by property owners who are in foreclosure. Dart is refusing to evict people until it can be proven that the residents have in fact been given this notice - he is still evicting rental tenants who haven't been paying their rent, just not people who have been paying their rent responsibly without any notice of trouble.

@Pylon83:

I am completely with Pylon83 on this.

Renters have very little, if any rights when it comes to a foreclosed (defaulted) property.

When the property owner defaults on his mortage, the bank needs to notify the owners 120 days before taking possesion of the property--which they did.

It sucks that renters are in these houses, really. But they have an issue with the landlord/defaulted property owner--not the bank who met the requirements.

It is not up to some county sheriff to "interpet" a very clear course of action. And, as Pylon suggested, maybe he should find a new line of work.

But the banks DO OWN these homes, and the people living there have no agreement to be in them.

@wgrune: No and thats a major problem, a large number of these homes have been rentals and neither the homeowners which have fled nor the banks have contacted the renters which is required by law. The renters have 30 days notice yet are just being thrown out of the houses without the notices.

He should be given a reward. Remember the Nuremberg Trials where the Natzie main defense was I was just following orders. Are we to throw out people who are paid-up (victims) of a bad land-lord. Something needs to be done to protect these people.

Now that is what I called being a maverick...while equally not being an asshat. You're my hero of the year, sheriff.

@jeknee:
If the Court issues a valid eviction order, after being convinced that the conditions imposed by the legislature are satisfied, the Sheriff has no right not to enforce that valid order. Any problems with the validity of the order should be dealt with by the issuing court, not by the Sheriff. Notice how he says that he could be held in contempt of court for not enforcing their orders? He knows he can't do what he's doing, but he has chosen to be a vigilante.

@Red_Flag: You sir/madam, have hit the nail on the head. In a perfect world, this would be the case in every state.

@balthisar:

That's what I figured...that they would have to use registered/certified to prove that they notified someone. It seems obvious to me that the banks aren't following the law and doing their due diligence on the evictions....oh wait, looking at the current mortage crisis, they've never really done their due diligence on anything, have they?

@Pylon83: So Pylon, which mortgage company do you work at? =P Kidding. Seriously though, I would think this Sheriff has a case- If a term of the eviction is that the renter be given notice, and they weren't, isn't it invalid? And that's leaving aside the trivial point of "being a decent fucking human being". Personally, I think this man's a hero.

@CreativeLinks:

Actually, if you read the article, you'll find that the law has changed and the mortage holder has to notify BOTH the property owner(landlord) as well as the person living in the property. So the renters do in fact have rights in this situation.

@Pylon83: Actually it IS his call to make. He would be breaking the law by ejecting people who have not been properly notified. This is a sticky situation since technically the banks and courts have broken the law the courts themselves have enacted. The Sherif is holding to a higher courts ruling over the municipal courts.

@Pylon83: And his choice is, IMHO, morally right. Renters should not be hung out to dry because their landlord screwed up. If the banks want to take ownership of the property, they should be legally obligated to honor the existing tenants' leases.

@OletheaEurystheus:
The Sheriff's job is not to interpret court rulings or interpret the law. It is to take the piece of paper that says "Evict" and enforce it.

@Red_Flag:
Again, the Sheriff doesn't get to make moral judgments. His job is very mechanical. Take eviction order, signed by a judge, and evict the people living in the applicable property. He is not elected to make legal or policy judgments. The Renters do indeed have legal rights, but those are to be dealt with in a court of law, not by a vigilante sheriff.

@Pylon83: Also, the contempt remark is what the Illinois Bankers Association said, not Sheriff Dart.

"In announcing his plan, Dart acknowledged that he could be found in contempt of court," --> the IBA said in a statement, <-- adding that the sheriff's decision "should not be tolerated."

@DallasPath:

I did read the article, and I belive you are referring to this line:

"Illinois law was recently revised to require the owner of the property and mortgage holder to notify whoever lives there 120 days before an eviction is carried out."

And the bank (the Mortgage holder) claim they are notifying tenants that a foreclosure is in place by sending notification to the address.

The law just says you have to notify tenants 120 days out. That's it. That's really not much of a right.

@Pylon83: and this is why we live in a near dictatorship.

People think that the law is supreme. Law was written by a bunch of people to establish order, that order is no more so we end up with people just "doing the right thing" (i.e. look at the RIAA)

At some point you gotta stick up for your morals and do the right thing. Paper vs people. If the Feds have to remove that sheriff from office, it would be political suicide for whoever ordered that saking.

The article mentions that some of the people may not have been notified 120 days before the evictions. If this is the case with all of the people that he is refusing to evict, then I wouldn't call him a vigilante. I would call him a hero. HOWEVER, if he's just stopping all evictions in apartments, because some people *may* have not been notified, and he has no proof either way, I can't say that I agree with him. And if he refuses to evict some people who actually did receive proper notice, then I would consider him a vigilante. And that's not a good thing. The article isn't totally clear on that though.

His quote concerns me though:

"These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don't care who's in the building," Dart said.

If he would have said something along the lines of "these mortgage companies aren't following the rules and need to be held accountable for it," then I would be all for it. But his quote makes me think his actions are based more on sympathy for people than on concern that proper procedures aren't being followed by the banks. And as a sheriff, he can't just refuse to enforce the law just because he doesn't agree with it.

Being suddenly evicted with no warning is one of my biggest fears as a renter. I'm glad he's doing this, right or wrong, because it's bringing the issue to the front page and hopefully there will be more legal rights for renters. Because it's bs for this to happen to good, unsuspecting people.