Thomas Dart, Sheriff of Cook County which includes Chicago, issued a statement earlier today saying he will not enforce foreclosure evictions for Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase and Co. and GMAC Mortgage/Ally Financial until they prove those foreclosures were handled "properly and legally."
Bank of America and GMAC both announced on Monday that they would be lifting their self-imposed moratoriums and continuing with foreclosures in the 23 judicial states.
Follow me below the fold for more
He announced today:
"I can't possibly be expected to evict people from their homes when the banks themselves can't say for sure everything was done properly," Dart said in the statement.
"I need some kind of assurance that we aren't evicting families based on fraudulent behavior by the banks. Until that happens, I can't in good conscience keep carrying out evictions involving these banks," he added.
Today's announcement affects about 500 foreclosure evictions that could be carried out now and about 1,000 more that would be up for eviction over the next several days. Sheriff Dart has requested that the banks provide an affidavit saying they had examined and verified each foreclosure.
He said such an affidavit would give him the confidence to carry out evictions again because it is illegal, a misdemeanor, to supply his office false information. He noted attorneys who signed such documents also would have to be careful because signing documents they know are false could put their law licenses at risk.
source
Sheriff Dart may be running for Mayor of Chicago. He has not made a formal announcement yet though he has told people close to him that he will do so.
Dart dismissed a suggestion that some might see his latest announcement as political "grandstanding." He said he has been a national leader on the issue ever since halting evictions in 2008 until banks put procedures in place to ensure his deputies were not evicting renters who faithfully paid their rent and were unaware of their landlords' financial problems.
With AG's in all 50 states investigating foreclosure fraud, it'll be interesting to see if any other sheriffs across the country follow suit.
My first diary. Hope I did this right :)