Thursday, November 29, 2018

Pols call for moratorium on property seizures


From PIX11:

Hundreds of homeowners throughout New York City have been defrauded out of their homes. Now, elected officials are calling for a federal investigation into the matter, including whether a city program may be partly to blame.

"There needs to be a moratorium on taking houses from these homeowners until we can make sure that somethings not unethical, illegal, or immoral," said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Adams says his office has heard dozens of similar stories over the past year: homeowners in rapidly gentrifying areas, like Bed-Stuy, forced out of their homes. He says it's usually been one of three causes:

Forced foreclosures
Deed fraud
City's third party transfer program

"We believe when you have something of this magnitude that could be a large number of black and brown homeowners losing their homes, when the dust settles we cannot look back and say wow we should have paid attention to this," Adams said.

Which is why he and City Council Member Robert Cornegy are calling for a stop on all property seizures pending federal, state, and city investigations. For it's part the city's office of Housing Preservation and Development, which runs the TPT program, says it's unfair to lump it in with other illegal activities scamming people out of their homes.


10 comments:

JQ LLC said...

The office of the HPD is encouraging and enabling this predatory behavior.

PIX's segment on this was less than 2 minutes and didn't cite Kings County Politics for this wretched plundering of properties.

JQ LLC said...

Another thing...

The corrupted HPD should just shorten their name and the department to HD, because it's obvious that those sellout officials there have no intent on any preservation for housing. Whether by ownership or affordable rentals.

Anonymous said...

That's funny. I would think it was the Democrats stealing from people who have a problem with the law on minimal pretenses.

This article seems to say it is being used to take property away from people in areas that have rapid gentrification.

Why don't they just list who the people who are selling the confiscated property are? That should clear it up.

Developers: stealing property to flip for gentrification.

The City: stealing from people to pad their ill gotten gains.

Sunnyside Al said...

The city might as well seize the properties and call for an end to private ownership.

Mayor Chirlane McCray might do just that!

Anonymous said...

Wow, completely useless report. No explanation as to what has transpired that caused these properties to be put up for sale. Do the owners have no responsibility in any this? This is all the fault of conniving lawyers, developers, government and HPD? Hmmm.

Anonymous said...

What's a "forced foreclosure"? is there any other kind?

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many of those in foreclosure gave false information- inflating their income or lying about how much debt they carry - to be given a mortgage.

How many were renting out apartments, rooms, or basements even though their property was in foreclosure?

The article is vague at best. But from interaction with HPD, I would believe that they are capable of fraud.

I've had over the years, HPD inspectors that would not cite a building owner for no heat, no hot water in 19 degree winter weather. I was almost locked out on a roof by an HPD inspector. He went down the roof stairs before me and grabbed the door handle to shut and lock the door. Lucky for me, I grabbed the other side and began screaming -What the Bleep are you doing? He was full of hostility for me and did not cite the unlocked roof door or the people who were using the roof.

Why do we have so many illegal apartments in basements and attics in Queens? Every day some one is evicted but the landlords turn around and rent them out again.

Anonymous said...

I don't even understand what is going on here! Where are all the property seizures of Zombie homes? I have one on my block that has been vacant for over 27 years. No the city wants homes that actually have people living in them.

Anonymous said...

>He was full of hostility for me and did not cite the unlocked roof door or the people who were using the roof.

Why would that be citable? Roof doors are supposed to be unlocked by law, and there's nothing wrong with people being up there, either.

M. How said...

Sunnyside Al said: "The city might as well seize the properties and call for an end to private ownership."

You must be clairvoyant! DuhBlazio recently said (and I paraphrase) the city should take over all private deeds and regulate all rents.

In that case, I guess those who "own homes, condos, coops and rental property" in New York would not have to pay taxes or worry about water and electric bills. The City would do that. All the former owner would have to do is pay rent determined by the City and lose whatever equity or rental income they may have worked for and acquired.
Isn't that special!