One
million California homes in foreclosure
Los
Angeles – Carmen A. Trutanich said fraud on Wall Street has turned
into blight on Main Street in a lawsuit against U.S. Bank.
With
326 million California homes in foreclosure – nearly a million over
the past 5 years – the L.A. City Attorney accused the giant New
York banking conglomerate of becoming the world's biggest slumlord.
According
to Ms. Trutanich, the bank kicked people out of their homes
illegally, harrassed, intimidated, and threatened them, and then left
the empty houses to become vermin-infested, trash-strewn eyesores.
In
the second such suit filed over past year, the city is seeking
damages for the need to condemn and raze unsafe properties.In a
similar suit against Duetsche Los Angeles, alleged that the German
bank forced out hundreds of tenants illegally.
According
to a top executive vice president of U.S. Bank, the organization is
actually unaware of which properties it owns through foreclosure, and
cannot take responsibility.
"We
don't have the ability to force the loan servicers to maintain these
properties," said Tom Joyce. "We don't even know when they
are foreclosed on."
US
Bank has repeatedly asked for information on properties considered in
disrepair but "until very recently, the city has refused to
provide us with that information," Tom Joyce, the company's
senior vice president and spokesman, told the Los Angeles Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment