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America's Foreclosure
Epidemic

Sheriff Refuses to Evict Foreclosure
Renters
by Robert
Franco |
2008/10/09
|

Reprinted with permission http://www.sourceoftitle.com/

It seems rather obvious that if you don't make your
payments, the lender will foreclose and you will be evicted
from your home.  But, what if the owner doesn't live
there?  What about the landlords that have failed to meet
their obligations, and their renters who have paid the
rent?  The system seems to be breaking down when innocent
people, who have met their financial obligations, are thrown
out on the street.

Sheriff Thomas Dart, in Cook County, has had an attack of
conscience and he has announced that he just won't evict
innocent people from their homes anymore.  He is
suspending foreclosure evictions in Cook County, which
includes the city of Chicago.  He could find himself
locked up in his own jail for ignoring eviction orders, but
this wouldn't be the first time a sheriff spent time behind
bars for refusing to evict people from their homes.  Are
you curious to know what happened to the last lawman who took
a similar stand?

According to Dart, the mortgage companies are
supposed to identify the occupants of a building before they
seek to have them evicted.  This, however, is not being
done in Cook County.  Dart wants the legislature to do
something to protect the many innocent people that are unaware
of their landlord's financial problems... at least, unaware
until a deputy knocks on their door to evict them.
(see Illinois Sheriff Scolds Banks for Evictions of
'Innocent' Renters)

"These mortgage companies ... don't care who's in
the building," Dart said Wednesday. "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. It stops
today."

The Illinois Bankers Association, not surprisingly, is
opposed to any legislation that would place a further duty on
the lender to identify those who are tenants in buildings that
are the subject of their foreclosures.  They simply
want Dart to enforce the court's eviction orders.

The Illinois Bankers Association said
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."

This may be an area where legal rights intersect with
moral wrongs. Tenants have rights.  In order to evict
a tenant in Illinois, a landlord must follow proper procedure
- including notifying the tenant.

"The complete process of evicting a tenant in
Illinois involves five distinct steps although the
occurrence or execution of all the five steps may not
be necessary for the tenant to lose her right to
possession: the first essential step is that the
tenant must be delinquent in her rent, second, the
landlord must notify the tenant, in writing, that
the rent must be paid within no less than five days,
third, the specified time period mentioned in the
notice must pass without tender of payment by the
tenant, fourth, the landlord must sue for possession
or maintain ejectment and obtain a judgment for
possession and fifth, a writ of possession issued
pursuant to the judgment for possession."

Robinson v. Chicago Hous. Auth., 54 F.3d
316 (7th Cir.
1995)

But, in these cases in Cook county, the tenant isn't being
evicted by the landlord because they didn't pay the
rent.  They are being evicted because the landlord has
failed to make their mortgage payments.  The rights of
the lender in this instance are superior to those of the owner
and his tenants.  Still, this doesn't change the fact
that the tenant is an innocent third party.  The
rights of the tenant should not be cast aside in such a
cavalier manner.  Shouldn't they at least be afforded
notice of the foreclosure action, and the likelihood of
eviction?

This seems to be all that Dart is looking for.
Make the lenders do their due diligence and notify the
tenants before they seek to have them evicted.  The
landlord would have to do the same if he were seeking to evict
them.  The tenants should not lose all of their rights
merely because the eviction is a result of a foreclosure,
rather than an action for forcible entry and detainer.

Dart has taken a moral stand on behalf of the innocent
tenants.  As I mentioned, he is not the first sheriff to
refuse to throw people out of their homes.  In the early
1980's, Sheriff Jim
Traficant refused to execute foreclosure orders evicting
Youngstown, Ohio, residents from their homes.  During
that time, Youngstown was experiencing a high rate of
unemployment due to steel mill closures.

Out of a sense of
compassion, or maybe because it made for good theater,
Traficant refused to evict these workingmen who were
guilty of nothing but losing their jobs. Traficant spent
time in jail for his refusal to serve the eviction
notices, and he became a folk hero. Some people thought
he could walk on water.
(see Welcome to
Youngstown...)

Traficant was later charged with racketeering and accepting
bribes.  He became the only person to ever win a RICO
case representing himself.  He went on to be elected to
Congress.  He served as a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from 1985 to 2002 when he was expelled after a
bribery conviction that earned him an 8-year prison
sentence.

Perhaps Traficant is not a man that Dart would want to be
compared to, but clearly this shows that following your
conscience and placing a high value on standing up for a moral
right can be good for your political future.  Arguably,
moral activism launched Traficant's career... and moral decay
ended it.

In Dart's case, I think he is making a brave and
righteous decision. Clearly the lenders have a right to
foreclose, but the system needs to be changed and the rights
of the tenants need to be protected.

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