GOV. RITTER & LAWMAKERS ANNOUNCE NEW PLAN TO PROTECT COLORADO NEIGHBORHOODS FROM ABANDONED HOMES

This is an awful idea.
This is nearly criminal on the part of the Governor, and at the least unfair to the residents of Colorado.
Stop this now. a bad idea.
randy brown
303-8889-1994

Imagine this scenario: You are in financial trouble and facing foreclosure. The State is now going to shorten the time you have to sell your home by one half.
They have added to your misery at one of the worst times in your life.
They ripped you off last year by doing away with the rescission time, and they are going to make life harder for you now by shortening the foreclosure time.
At a time when they should be trying to help, they are adding to your misery. At the worst they should stay out of this, not make it worse.
This is a very bad idea.
It ignores one of the most obvious problems: The banks don’t care. They too let the properties sit there, with the yards dead and the windows broken. They won’t help solve the problem that this bill is supposed to fix.
Stop this really bad idea now.
Randy Brown
303-888-1994

Changing the rules without your knowledge.

Let’s start at the beginning. In the last few years, the State of Colorado changed the foreclosure procedures. They changed them to benefit the banks. The papers barely reported it, and most homeowners had no idea that they had just been ripped off. In fact, you probably haven’t even heard about this change in the law. It wasn’t even a ripple in the pond, with all of the foreclosures and bank failures going on.
We used to have a “right of rescission” after the foreclosure sale, during which an owner had a period of approx. 75 days in which they could buy back their own foreclosed property. They could get a loan, if possible. They could borrow money from family, if possible. They could sell the property and pay off the bank. I will admit that this did not happen very often, but it was the law, and it was fair. The key word here is fair. You were foreclosed on, you had a chance to buy it back, and then the bank took it.
That chance to buy it back is gone.
Once the bank forecloses they own it. Period.
This right of rescission was a long standing and fair law, and it was swept away by your legislature without any notice at all.
Rules and fairness do not matter when you are the banks and the State.
They only matter when your home is being foreclosed on, and you want to try to save it.
Now, the State is at it again. Here is a summary.
The new foreclosure laws are pretty tough. You get four months to sell your home. If it doesn’t sell, the bank can foreclosure, and you have no options. That is right: No options. The bank owns your home. Your deadline is four months. Four months in this real estate market and economy is often too short a time. But, that is tough, you have no options.
Now the State and the lenders with their powerful lobbies want to change the rules again. Now they want to give you two months. I will repeat: Two Months.
If your home isn’t sold in two months, you are out on the street.
And, why are they changing this rule? Their excuse is the problem with vacant homes, and how run down and badly maintained homes make the neighborhood look, devaluing other properties.
I cannot express my anger and outrage at this subterfuge. It is true that some owners let their properties go into a state of disrepair. But, it is also a fact that many of these properties in this state of disrepair are bank owned, and sit for months and more, without any repairs or work of any kind. The banks are at fault too, as much or more than the owners. It is common knowledge that a bank will rarely spend a dime to fix up a home that has been foreclosed. As difficult as it is to believe, it is my experience that banks don’t care at all about the property. They do not maintain them. They do not water the yards. They do not fix the broken windows. They do not care.
Then I ask: How is shortening the foreclosure time going to change the blighted home problem? It will just pass title of the property to another owner that doesn’t care. I know it makes no sense that a bank won’t even try to maintain their valuable collateral, the home they have just foreclosed on, but it is a fact.
So, we have the State of Colorado piling on misery for those people facing foreclosure by giving them a ridiculous two month time period to sell their home, which is the last resort offered to them under Colorado law. We have the banks pushing the idea, because they can foreclose more quickly. We have a few neighbors angry about the dead yards and the house that sits next door or up the street that is in such awful repair. We have the rest of the population that doesn’t even know about the law, or care, because they haven’t been foreclosed on. Their jobs are secure, and the financial nightmare hasn’t been a part of their dreams, so far.
This proposed change does nothing to address the problem with pre-foreclosure sales. Properties are vacant for months and months while the bank and the owner talk and try to find other options. This proposal will not solve that part of this problem in any way.
Here is alternate and easy solution:
If it is true that all of these people are complaining, and that the distressed properties are hurting their values, why not ask them to help out? Get out a hose and water the yard. Cut the grass. Clean up the mess. Help out your neighbor, and, by helping, help out yourself and the values in your neighborhood.

We don’t need to change the law to make it harder on Coloradans that are in financial trouble. We don’t need to take away the reasonable time they have to sell their homes during the time they are in serious financial trouble. We don’t need to make things worse for them.
The fact that Gov. Ritter and the other sponsors of the bill can’t see this simple and human solution makes me think that there is another agenda here: an agenda that benefits the banks and financial institutions. That is obvious and evident.
Stop the State from implementing this ridiculous change in the law.
Randy Brown
303-888-1994