Does Anybody Know Where I Can Find Uneven Footwear?

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fff I went to Target – Nope.

fff I asked my greeter at Walmart – Nada.

fff K-Mart? Sears? – Negative.

fff Google? Yahoo? Bing?  – Zilch.

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Ever since I attended a recent real estate convention at the beach and saw this dire warning, I’ve been on the hunt for this elusive footwear.

I’m not sure how insiders are locating them, but think of it – with uneven shoes, you can counteract the unevenness of the wooden deck boards – GENIUS!  After all, who out there hasn’t tripped on one of the many gaps and gores in a beach town boardwalk?

I want these shoes!  Undaunted, my quest will continue.  And speaking of unevenness, I ripped some headlines from the news:

– Administration Shifts Focus on Foreclosure-Gate

– Fraud Task Force Starts Criminal Investigation of Servicers

– US probe targeting foreclosure documents

– Md. judges OK foreclosure audits

– FBI investigating whether banks broke criminal laws

I remember a day when lenders held all the cards.  Lenders were the darlings of Wall Street.  Their fancy computer models told pension fund investors that real estate could never again depreciate.  And if a foreclosure was necessary, the lender would simply jam it through the process and sell the property for a profit.  And no judge or legislature in the land was going to stop it.

Oh, how times have changed.  The pendulum has swung, lenders are under siege, and it’s Christmas-time for borrowers!  A borrower can stop making payments and get a free ride for what – a year? Two years?  More?  And Why?  Because of a mountain of class action lawsuits, crippling regulations, political pressure and criminal investigations.

But is this what we really want?  Is this the best way to get our properties back to productive use? Are borrowers accountable at all?

Make no mistake – I’m not a proponent of wrongful eviction, but how many of these homeowners are being “wrongfully” evicted?  Most times, lenders aren’t even foreclosing until 6+ months after default, and most borrowers either don’t qualify for or won’t adhere to a modification program.  At what point do we say enough is enough and make non-paying borrowers move to a place they can afford and start over?  When did squatting become an absolute right in our Country at the expense of the lender and taxpayer?

Banks lend us money under a contract – we get the benefit of living in the house but, if a default occurs, the bank has the right to foreclose.  End of story.  As a lawyer, I understand how a contract can be contested when there’s a disagreement as to its “material” terms.  If there was fraud in procuring the contract, fine – stop the foreclosure and get Judge Judy to figure it out.  But trying to get out of a mortgage and live for free because of some document technicalities?  C’mon! Really?

We can stop, enjoin, delay, outlaw or indict these lenders to death, but let’s consider the real problem in all of this – if lenders can’t foreclose, who’s carrying the burden of free-riding borrowers, rundown properties, and a stalled economy?  I’ll give you one guess.

I vote to stop the nonsense.  Let’s rip the band-aid off and get this economy rolling again!!

BTW, if you still haven’t gotten it, put a “.” after the word “uneven.”

Jeff