Eviction Should Be Illegal

Any eviction should be treated by the courts with the gravest concern for the tenant or borrower. I know in my experience and because of what I do for a living as a paralegal and an accountant, that there are times when people take advantage of a rental situation and merely enter into leases with the full intention of not paying the rent. I know of one man in our town who has made a bad reputation for himself and his family because he routinely defaults on rental leases. I am not like this person. Our family is not like this person. Up until this fraud started with the mortgage company we had never missed a mortgage payment, or any bill for that matter. Our credit was good, we both had good jobs, and we thought we had a home until it was paid off. But things change, sometimes quickly, and in 2009 our battle started with Wells Fargo only to end up in a further battle against foreclosing trustee HSBC Bank. We never had a chance at justice or a fair hearing, like so many other disillusioned homeowners we thought the courts would at least look at our reasons for being there.

We thought, stupidly, that a judge is supposed to hear both sides of a story and then make a fair and just and reasoned decision that provides an equitable relief to both parties. Whoops! Did I just say fair and equitable relief?? That's what the law says your supposed to to do if you are a judge. But if you are a judge who does not want to be bothered with all this, you take the easy way out and then you throw homeowners out on their heads, using the Colorado Rule 120 hearing as a tool to make your job easier and process a lot of cases. There's something wrong with a legal system if a homeowner has to sue the lender to get justice, and justice repays the homeowner by refusing to grant a hearing on the claims. There's something wrong with a legal system that is supposed to provide a fair hearing where both parties present their evidence and a judge decides that only one party can present it, the other party has to sit there and watch while they lose a 30 year financial investment with no remedy. There's something wrong with a legal system that allows a lender into the courtroom with "copies" of documents that should be blue ink signed originals as evidence of debt, and a "certification" by the lenders attorney that "all documents have been verified as accurate". Colorado judges are elected. I even voted for the one who is responsible for allowing my illegal foreclosure to go through. But I will not be voting for him again. In fact, I will be contacting the Colorado State Bar to file a complaint against him. I will be contacting the Attorney General in Colorado to complain about this judge's total lack of procedure in our case. I will be contacting each and every person I know to make sure this judge is not elected again. I have no idea how many people he was responsible for evicting from their homes, but I am sure if I do a little research the number will be in the thousands. We have a person who is in charge of whether we get to continue to live in our homes that we paid thousands of dollars of principal and interest on, improved, fixed, maintained, insured, fed kids in, entertained in, celebrated in, grieved in. A home is more than a mortgage payment, it is a dwelling for a family. Evicting someone from a dwelling is not something you rush into, through, or decide without great trepidation, and without examining all possible resources first to help the person stay in their home. Even a default should not cost a person their home. People have lives, they are human, events happen. People have lost their jobs, their health, had a death in the family, been victims of weather, floods, devastation, all kinds of things happen to people. A default with extenuating circumstances should not result in losing a dwelling. Millions of people have been victimized by predatory lenders in the last five years because of laws that allow the lenders to foreclose with the barest and shoddiest paperwork, when eviction should be treated with strict procedures and discovery. Putting lenders on notice that improper paperwork will not be tolerated, and allowing judges to use broader discretion when deciding a foreclosure issue would level the playing field, and make the idea of justice more real to the average person. It would result in an actual ruling that is truly "fair and equitable" for both parties.