Foreclosures’ hidden risk: Debt that haunts for two decades
By Kimberly Miller and Christine Stapleton
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
He once lived just steps from the ocean in a home valued last decade at more than $500,000 . But John Ericksen has fallen – far – and the bank that took away his Juno Beach home last year isn’t done with him yet.
In November, Riverside National Bank won a $151,461 claim against the down-and-out handyman who now resides in a one-bedroom trailer in Riviera Beach’s scruffy Ocean Tide mobile home park.
Called a “deficiency judgment,” the claim is what Ericksen, 59, still owes on the loan for a home he’s already lost.
“They are actually trying to get money from me?” said a surprised Ericksen when contacted by The Palm Beach Post. “Good luck with that one. I’m pretty much out.”
In Florida, banks have five years to file for a deficiency judgment and up to 20 years to collect.
But nearly six years into the state’s foreclosure onslaught and with more than 100,000 foreclosures filed in Palm Beach County since the real estate bust, the number of deficiency claims sought by the banks is minuscule.
A review of thousands of Palm Beach County court records by The Palm Beach Post found just 133 deficiency claims filed between April 2006 and November 2010 on foreclosed residential properties. They were made by 88 servicers or lenders, with 68 resulting in a judge granting the right to pursue the deficiency.
Check out the rest here…
So the moral to the story is, once you get back on your feet a few years after the foreclosure, they come back and knock you down again. How’s that for recovery…
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Amazingly, the St. Pete Times has a very similar article on the same day. Both used the word “haunt” in the title and neither mention any criminal acts by the banksters which of course are defenses to foreclosure and deficieny judgments if you can find a judge who is not on the banksters’ payroll and will follow the law.
See St. Pete Times – Deficiency Judgments Haunt Borrowers
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/deficiency-judgments-let-creditors-haunt-borrowers-for-up-to-20-years/1160128
Declare Bankruptcy and clear the debt. Start fresh.
Sue them as you too have the right, your quality of life is being effected negatively. They are scum! treat them that way but with proper lingo so you come out on top.
Blessing to you!!!
They use the law so you should too. Bankruptcy is the right you have to stop them and remove the debt. It’s amazing how many want to give you credit so you can begin life again clear of all debt.
Many very successful business men and women in their past have done this.
In business pay the little companies by having a line of credit from a bank……