Cook County Sheriff Suspending Mortgage Foreclosure Evictions

UPDATE

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is helping to uphold state law with his eviction moratorium:

People will be required to get the legal notice that they should've gotten before they were thrown out of their homes. It's a good thing that the sheriff is going to work to follow the law.

Listen to Madigan's remarks here.

-------------
UPDATE

A mortgage lender filed suit against Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart Thursday to force him to resume evicting people from foreclosed homes, Mark J. Konkol reports in the Sun-Times:

Accredited Home Lenders filed a lawsuit Thursday to get Dart to obey an order that calls for the eviction of Shirley McFarland of Dolton from her foreclosed bungalow.

"Sheriff Dart may have concerns about the orders that he is charged with enforcing, but he simply cannot refuse to carry them out. The orders of the court must be enforced," attorneys for Accredited Home said in a statement. "This lawsuit is necessary to ensure that."

Dart also met with Cook County Judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird to discuss having banks file an affadavit stating that residents have been given fair notice before evictions. Dart had previously said that his attempts to have the state legislature pass similar provisions went nowhere.

Story continues below

advertisement

-------------------------
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart will suspend all mortgage foreclosure evictions beginning Thursday, he announced today.

"These mortgage companies only see pieces of paper, not people, and don't care who's in the building," Dart said in a statement. "They simply want their money and don't care who gets hurt along the way. On top of it all, they want taxpayers to fund their investigative work for them. We're not going to do their jobs for them anymore. We're just not going to evict innocent tenants."

The suspension is a response to the soaring number of evictions in the County, many of which are of renters oblivious to their landlord's mortgage failure, according to Dart's statement. The sheriff's office expected to conduct foreclosure evictions at 4,500 properties this year, compared to 1,771 in 2006.

Comments

[cdnpoet]

All anyone has to do that is about to be evicted is get 12 common people to act as jury with the Sheriff to be referee/judge and have the "lender" appear in court with the papers that prove a verifiable contract between the "lender and the the person up for eviction. These papers must, in order to be a true contract, be signed by both parties. As a corporation has no body it (the corporation) can not sign. Where is the contract?

[s dub]

Who gives a s!@$ if it is legal or not at this point. I applaud him for acting independently when seeing something is wrong. More people should act independently to stave off this monstrous set of actions by ALL the profiteers globally.

[boogiewoman]

Good going Sheriff. I know he can sleep at night. Now every other Sheriff needs to do the same. Stop the maddness. Go after the real crooks in this mess.

[naschkatze]

I keep hoping to see other sheriffs joining Tom Dart, but so far, nichts.

[Wiredwilly]

Throw " Accredited Home Lenders" out on the Street. Who accredited them, Satan ?

[sonicbluetm]

If you bail out the bankers you're a hero "of the people". If you bail out the people themselves you're vigilante. I see...

[patianneb]

This is a real human being...mcC, take a look.

[thebigthinker]

Banks have procedures and steps to foreclosure process. Bank hires local real estate agent to check occupancy, leave notice, and offer cash for key to owners or tenants. And when owners or tenant do not want to move within 30 days, sometimes even after they get money from the bank, bank starts an eviction process and asks sheriff to proceed with eviction. What this sheriff is doing is illegal.

[patianneb]

I'm not taking your word as to whether or not what the Sheriff is doing is legal or not but the fact is, and you only have to look at the news headlines today....economy, presidential race, etc.....
THERE IS THAT WHICH IS LEGAL
THERE IS THAT WHICH IS RIGHT

Sometimes you just have to do WHAT IS RIGHT.

[mommomde]

This confirms what I have been thinking all along. The sub-prime mortgage mess is not solely the result of giving mortgages to low-income familes. The majority are from real estate speculators who either wanted to flip the property or rent it out and now can't afford the balloon payments.

I wish the Obama campaign would investigate and show a pie chart with the actual percentage going to low-income, the percentage going to people buying McMansions and the speculators. Let the facts speak for themselves.

I can't beleive a world-wide financial meltdown is caused by trying to get low income families into homes.

[carriellbee]

No families have caused this mess. NONE at all. This mess has been purposely created by the banks. I highly recommend that everyone watch this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912

[susierr]

Yes let the Sheriffs go after the real criminals, not innocent families!

[Elysiumfire]

Sheriff Tom Dart sounds like a man of conscience. It has been a real pleasure to read about a law officer who genuinely cares for his community whilst doing his difficult duties. Instead of reading about the inappropriate use of the taser, and other forms of brutal behaviour from other law enforcers, we have here a fellow whom has read the situation correctly, nailed it, and hammered it home. I certainly applaud him for his conviction and principle, and his willing stance to uphold them. May there be more like him.

[survivaltime]

BRAVO!! well done!!

I only wish the rest of the country's Sheriff's would wake up to this and do what's right...Don't kick people out of their homes...let the banks ROT for scamming all of us all these years!
Sooner or later we're all gonna face the same thing, it's not going to get any better before it gets a WHOLE LOT WORSE!

http://www.SurvivalTime.org

[prototism]

I worked in a law firm here in California that represents lenders in evictions and other legal actions. One of my duties was to work directly with Sheriff deputies of counties in California and Nevada. On more than one occasion, I actually helped the person(s), usually renters, from being evicted. Or, it would be better to say, sometimes, in specific cases (single mothers, etc), I delayed the inevitable.

I'm glad one of the agencies involved is doing what IT can to help these people, who were either maliciously or non-maliciously hurt by their landlords.

[Wiredwilly]

All Right !!! For once The Police are protecting the PEOPLE and not the Banks !!!

[naschkatze]

Would that sheriffs all across the country take a page from his book!

[John05]

Tom Dart for mayor, Daley should have made that call, but of course he's phony and coward
and it probably getting kick backs from evictions.