Homeowners (ex homeowners that is) trashing their houses after foreclosure

z0mb13

Lifer
May 19, 2002
18,106
1
76
Jeebuz such lowlifes...

Article from WSJ:

Buyers' Revenge:
Trash the House
After Foreclosure
Banks Pay People Off
To Deter Home Rage;
Loose Pets, Paint Spills
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS
March 28, 2008

LAS VEGAS -- Eddy Buompensiero noticed eight pairs of shoes outside the door of the modest house on Mother of Pearl Street, evidence that the former owners were still living there even though the bank had foreclosed.

Mr. Buompensiero, a gray-bearded inspector for REO Asset Services-1st Realty Group, rang the bell. When no one answered, he taped a letter to the door offering the occupants $1,000 to move out. The catch: They won't get a cent if they trash the house before they leave.

"If it was me, I'd take the money," Mr. Buompensiero said as he drove away. Either way, they're "going to get thrown out in a couple of weeks."


Glitzy Las Vegas isn't immune to the foreclosure crisis and WSJ's Michael Phillips reports bitter homeowners aren't leaving quietly. Now, banks are offering to pay them not to strip down or vandalize their foreclosed homes. (March 28)
The stucco subdivisions of Las Vegas are caught up in the nation's foreclosure crisis. These days, bankers and mortgage companies often find that by the time they get the keys back, embittered homeowners have stripped out appliances, punched holes in walls, dumped paint on carpets and, as a parting gift, locked their pets inside to wreak further havoc. Real-estate agents estimate that about half of foreclosed properties to be sold by mortgage companies nationwide have "substantial" damage, according to a new survey by Campbell Communications, a marketing and research firm based in Washington, D.C.

The most practical way to ensure the houses are returned in decent shape, lenders and their agents say, is to pay homeowners hundreds or even thousands of dollars to put their anger in escrow and leave quietly. A ransom? A bribe? "Yeah, somewhat," says John Carver, an agent specializing in foreclosed homes for Prudential Americana Group in Las Vegas. But "you lose a house, and then you get some financial help -- it's a good thing...It's a win-win for both parties."


No one tracks how frequently such payoffs are made. In Las Vegas, agents hired by the banks to handle foreclosed properties say the "cash for keys" approach, as it's known in the industry, is a regular part of the job. After all, formal eviction proceedings can take months and cost potentially much more than a payoff.

Analysts predict that as many as two million homeowners could enter foreclosure this year, caught by a slowing economy, falling house prices and, in many cases, adjustable mortgages with rates rising from high to higher. In Las Vegas, 1.9% of homes in the Las Vegas area were in the foreclosure process in January, almost triple the rate of a year earlier, according to First American CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, Calif., real-estate and mortgage data company.

Getting Revenge

Each day, auctioneers offer 150 to 200 properties for sale in the small lobby of the Nevada Legal News -- a high-speed inventory of dreams forfeited on Lucky Boy Drive, Jackpot Circle and other Las Vegas addresses. Often in attendance is Eddie Haddad, a 36-year-old who cut his real-estate teeth buying and restoring foreclosed properties. During the boom, he tried developing a 38-story tower of lofts for the Las Vegas art set. But the project stalled, and a few weeks ago, Mr. Haddad again found himself shopping for bargains at the foreclosure auction.

"We expect them to be trashed," Mr. Haddad says of the homes he buys. He prefers to call in the sheriff when he needs to evict hold-out occupants; for him, paying cash is a "last resort."

About 95% of the auctioned properties, however, go unsold and revert to banks eager to get the properties off their books. Some owners just walk away peacefully. But agents say a significant number take what they can carry and take revenge on the rest.

"I'm one of the thousands of people in town in foreclosure so I'd like to get as much as possible for the items," said one recent Las Vegas online ad offering a double wall oven, dishwasher and built-in microwave, all of which, in most cases, legally belong to the bank. Rules vary by state and county, but in Las Vegas, banks typically own everything that is built into a foreclosed home.

"When you're losing your dream, and you're paying all this money to it...and you're hoping that it's going to go up, and you're going to make 100 grand like everybody else did, and it doesn't happen -- you know, people get upset," says Joe Kraemer, a broker with Century 21 Advantage Gold who deals in foreclosed homes.

The evidence of that discontent was all over the carpet when Mr. Carver, of Prudential Americana Group, first visited a foreclosed house on Perfect Parsley Street. It didn't look like the usual waste from an abandoned dog or cat. "I would say 'ferret' from the way it's all along the baseboard, the way an animal would scurry," he said recently, leafing through photos of his most-memorable vandalized properties.


Michael M. Phillips
A bank sign outside a home in Sun City, Henderson, Nev.
The original owner bought the house new in 2003 for $131,000. A year ago, Mr. Carver says, it could have fetched a quarter of a million. But the market fell fast and the owner, for unknown reasons, fell delinquent. The bank hired Mr. Carver and Leslie Carver, his wife and business partner, to list it, but chose not to refurbish before selling. The house sold for $170,000 in November, ferret scat included.

Crowbar Damage

Cruising the wreckage of the Las Vegas property market every day in his silver Cadillac Escalade, the 38-year-old Mr. Carver has developed a connoisseur's eye for pointless destruction. Vandals who break into empty houses often smash windows and paint graffiti on the walls, he says. But it takes an enraged, delinquent mortgagor to indulge in a frenzy of destruction, such as the one that took place recently in a three-bedroom, 1,949-square-foot house in a residential and industrial area northeast of the casinos on the Strip.

Light switches, outlet covers and thermostats were smashed. There was what looked to be crowbar damage along the staircase. A large pool of paint had hardened on the living-room carpet. It appeared that someone had dripped motor oil in a trail that wound its way through every carpeted room. The appliances were gone, as were most light fixtures. A cabinet door had been removed and left soaking in a full tub of water. Not a wall was left without a hole the diameter of a closet rod, including the pink child's room once carefully decorated with a floral wallpaper stripe. It's damage that Mr. Carver described as "a vengeance-type thing."

"Some people have issues, and need to do what they have to do, I guess," he said.

The former owners, who couldn't be located, paid $261,892 for the house when it was new in March 2006, borrowing $209,513 in their first mortgage, according to public records. Now it's listed for $149,000 -- as is.

Banks rarely pursue charges against destructive homeowners; it's not worth the cost and trouble. Instead, they try to prevent home rage by giving agents such as Mr. Carver blanket authorization to offer at least $300 to occupants to get them to leave peacefully.

Late last month, Mr. Carver left a letter on the door of a house with a red-tiled roof in Henderson, abutting Las Vegas. "I may be able to offer you cash to vacate the property," the note said.

The owner, a 43-year-old man with two children who spoke on the condition that his name not be used, says he bought the property in 1993 for $140,000. Three years ago, he says he had the house appraised for $440,000 and took out a $207,000 home-equity loan to pay off credit-card bills and buy his wife a new van. His initial payments were an affordable $1,800 a month.

He fell behind, however, after he went through a divorce and his landscaping business faltered, just as his interest rate was rising. The man worked out a payment plan with the bank and borrowed heavily from his father, but, including penalties, his monthly payments rose to $4,000, he says. After two months, he says, he ran out of money, and the bank foreclosed.

He called Mr. Carver after receiving the cash-for-keys note, but was left cold by the bank's initial $500 offer to leave the house soon, intact and broom-swept. "If I stay here it will cost them a lot more money," both men remember the former owner saying.

The man says he was just pointing out that eviction is expensive for the bank and says he had no intention of damaging the house. But he had "pushed the right buttons" for Mr. Carver. "He didn't actually come out and threaten the property in any way," Mr. Carver says. "But I assumed that he probably wouldn't be too happy if he got evicted and locked out."

Mr. Carver consulted with the bank and upped the offer to $2,800.

"Better than nothing," the owner responded.

Last week, Mr. Carver went to the house, found it clean and whole, and handed the man a check. "Everybody walks away somewhat happy," Mr. Carver said. "I guess."

 

Darthvoy

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2004
1,825
1
0
yeah I saw in the news the other day that here in cali people are burning their foreclosed homes.
 

Corbett

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2005
3,074
0
76
My brother in law just re-wired the entire electricty in a home because the owner who was being forclosed on decided to go down in the basement and cut every single power line to every outlet in the house, right up where it goes through the floor!
 

isekii

Lifer
Mar 16, 2001
28,578
3
81
Originally posted by: Corbett
My brother in law just re-wired the entire electricty in a home because the owner who was being forclosed on decided to go down in the basement and cut every single power line to every outlet in the house, right up where it goes through the floor!

Douchebaggery at it's finest
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,337
136
Unfortunately, this kind of thing isn't actually new, we're just seeing more of it.

I would strongly recommend people not do this. It doesn't help anyone, and it could lead to legal problems. Plus, it's a real dirtball thing to do.

 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,337
136
Originally posted by: Corbett
My brother in law just re-wired the entire electricty in a home because the owner who was being forclosed on decided to go down in the basement and cut every single power line to every outlet in the house, right up where it goes through the floor!

I helped my sister and (now ex-) husband buy a foreclosure back in 2000. They got a great deal on the house (I mean great), but the process ended up being a nightmare. The sellers ended up having to be evicted by the sheriffs, and they left 3 TONS of garbage in the basement.
 

Aharami

Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
21,205
165
106
yea. exactly why our realtor strongly recommended against even considering foreclosures
 

BarneyFife

Diamond Member
Aug 12, 2001
3,875
0
76
Yeah I had buddys buy houses and the shelves/cabinets are missing, the walls are smashed, garage door is missing etc...
 

Queasy

Moderator<br>Console Gaming
Aug 24, 2001
31,796
2
0
Originally posted by: Vic
Unfortunately, this kind of thing isn't actually new, we're just seeing more of it.

That and since the housing industry is experiencing a crisis the news industry has deemed it worthy of their attention. If not, they'd be reporting on something else.

My brother bought a HUD home in Houston in the early 90s. The people that lived there got foreclosed on, ripped out the fixtures, burned the kitchen, and trashed other parts of the house. My brother got a great deal on it (obviously) and I spent part of one summer helping him fix it up.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
65,708
14,104
146
Sadly, it ain't nuthin new...just much more common.

When we were looking at houses in 1999, we saw a few repos...every single one of them had been ravaged by the previous owner before they moved out...one guy went so far as to remove all the doors and windows, another guy had dirt hauled in and filled the in-ground swimming pool! (I know it's common with older pools that cost too much to repair...this one was less than 3 years old.) It's hard to assess what other damage may have been done to the pool before he had it filled. (maybe bodies buried in there!)

As the article states, it's rare for lenders to pursue legal action against these folks. Odds are, they don't have a dammed thing for them to get in a court if they win... Usually cheaper to just fix the damage and move on.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
Originally posted by: Vic
Unfortunately, this kind of thing isn't actually new, we're just seeing more of it.

I would strongly recommend people not do this. It doesn't help anyone, and it could lead to legal problems. Plus, it's a real dirtball thing to do.

most have nothing to lose...'meant to renters' got a big break with everyone getting cheap loans and took advantage of it.

For a long time a bank would expect most of the things not bolted down to be gone when they took possession of a property...many times even the sinks and toilets sold off.
 

Slew Foot

Lifer
Sep 22, 2005
12,379
96
86
Concrete down the toilet is a popular one I hear.

Could this be considered vandalism? I mean, you're ruining the banks property. If I were an a hole bank manager guy, Id get the cops to haul these assholes of to jail.
 

Gunslinger08

Lifer
Nov 18, 2001
13,234
2
81
I honestly have no idea how people are this stupid. You're completely opening yourself up to either:
1. Paying the bank the amount between what the house sells for and what you owe (which is higher if you trash the place)
2. Being sued for repairs
3. Being an asshole
 

LikeLinus

Lifer
Jul 25, 2001
11,518
670
126
Originally posted by: Slew Foot
Concrete down the toilet is a popular one I hear.

Could this be considered vandalism? I mean, you're ruining the banks property. If I were an a hole bank manager guy, Id get the cops to haul these assholes of to jail.

I'd assume there could be a bunch of charges against these people.

Arson
Destruction of Private Property
Vandalism
Theft
 

Mxylplyx

Diamond Member
Mar 21, 2007
4,197
101
106
They should crowd people that do this into wrecked foreclosed homes, and burn them down.
 

Ruptga

Lifer
Aug 3, 2006
10,246
207
106
Originally posted by: Slew Foot
Concrete down the toilet is a popular one I hear.

Could this be considered vandalism? I mean, you're ruining the banks property. If I were an a hole bank manager guy, Id get the cops to haul these assholes of to jail.

This is just amazing (these children in adult bodies, not you).... Anyway, it's already been said a few times that it's not worth pursuing them, financially at least. You just can't get blood out of a turnip.
 

Skiddex

Golden Member
May 17, 2001
1,380
0
76

Scouzer

Lifer
Jun 3, 2001
10,358
5
0
Originally posted by: joshsquall
I honestly have no idea how people are this stupid. You're completely opening yourself up to either:
1. Paying the bank the amount between what the house sells for and what you owe (which is higher if you trash the place)
2. Being sued for repairs
3. Being an asshole

1 and 2 don't apply because it's safe to say these people have zero money.
 

LikeLinus

Lifer
Jul 25, 2001
11,518
670
126
Originally posted by: Scouzer
Originally posted by: joshsquall
I honestly have no idea how people are this stupid. You're completely opening yourself up to either:
1. Paying the bank the amount between what the house sells for and what you owe (which is higher if you trash the place)
2. Being sued for repairs
3. Being an asshole

1 and 2 don't apply because it's safe to say these people have zero money.

Garnished wages?
 

Slew Foot

Lifer
Sep 22, 2005
12,379
96
86
Originally posted by: LikeLinus
Originally posted by: Scouzer
Originally posted by: joshsquall
I honestly have no idea how people are this stupid. You're completely opening yourself up to either:
1. Paying the bank the amount between what the house sells for and what you owe (which is higher if you trash the place)
2. Being sued for repairs
3. Being an asshole

1 and 2 don't apply because it's safe to say these people have zero money.

Garnished welfare/foodstamps/medi-cal


Fixed



 

SirStev0

Lifer
Nov 13, 2003
10,449
6
81
i want to tell a little story 'bout a party that went all right, but went all wrong
i want to tell a little story 'bout a party in this song...

it happened back in '93, in the pittsburgh punk rock scene
an event that will go down, in infamy
it was all the master plan, of one legendary punk rock kid
his name was "spaz", s-p-a-z...

an eviction notice sent to his house sparked off an idea,
"i think i'll have one more party at my place..."
so off he set with his master plan, the invitations in his hand read,
and this was just the first night, of a three-day long party

spaz's house destruction party, it was chaos with no end
if you were crazy enough to make the house destruction party
then you know you're lucky that you lived

we played there st. patrick's day, with submachine and the bad genes
in a basement full of debris
from kicked in doors, broken glass, kicked in walls the place was trashed
the house was now missing its support beams

the bathrooms had no toilets or sinks left in them
there was nothing in the kitchen left to break
aus rotten spray painted on walls, drunk punks passed out in the halls
and this was just the second night, of a three-day long party


the cops showed up and all the kids went piling out the back
i remember running away and hiding out in the lot behind the squirrel hill mellon bank
the cop said, "i want to speak to someone who lives here!" and this punk kid said she did
he asked, "is this the condition this house has always been in?" she answered,
"ah... fucking right pig"
 

mugs

Lifer
Apr 29, 2003
48,920
46
91
Originally posted by: Slew Foot
Concrete down the toilet is a popular one I hear.

Could this be considered vandalism? I mean, you're ruining the banks property. If I were an a hole bank manager guy, Id get the cops to haul these assholes of to jail.

I'm guessing the problem is you can't prove when it happened.

These people and the "walk away foreclosure" people are scum. People like this make me wish that negative marks on your credit report were permanent.
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
65,708
14,104
146
Originally posted by: Naustica
Originally posted by: Skiddex
i am in the process of buying a REO condo property here in kansas city. previous owners trashed the walls...here are some pictures, but they dont do the "artwork" justice.

http://207.250.58.80/mediawiki/images/0/02/Auto8.JPG
http://207.250.58.80/mediawiki/images/c/cc/Auto10.JPG

Nothing several gallons of Kilz won't fix.

fixed that for ya. Spray paint is a mofo to cover...we had to deal with Marks-a-Lot on the walls when we bought our house. The owners had a child that was in poor health, so they tolerated a lot of bad behavior from him. He died in the bathtub while he was in the care of a nanny, so they sold the house...little bastard still haunts us from time to time...;)
(something goes wrong, we blame it on Bobby)