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Foreclosure Solutions? Write Your Congressmen and Senators!

Well, if you are a bankruptcy attorney or if you are reading this blog (or, if you have not had your head in the sand for the last year), then you know that the U.S. has a mortgage crisis. Home foreclosures and the rate of homes in the foreclosure process rose to a record in the 3d quarter of 2007, said the Mortgage Bankers Association. About 994,000 U.S. households are in the process of foreclosure, said MBNA’s chief economist Doug Duncan (that’s about the number of people living in the Charlotte, NC area). 

How to fix this?

The 1/10/08 edition of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s website, ABIWorld.org, reported that  Allstate Insurance  said that it’s seen an increase nationally in arson among homes in foreclosure. In California, the state’s insurance division said questionable residential fires increased in 2007 76% over 2006. Well, some people say that that’s always been some folks’ solution, but I do not advocate that.

Congress is considering two bills, S. 2136 and H.R. 3609 (which has passed the House Judicial Committee), both of which would allow debtors to file bankruptcy to modify their mortgages. The bills are not law, yet, so write your Senator and Congressman supporting these efforts.

William F. Buckley said in a 1/3/08 article in the National Review that the federal government is the only agent which can solve the subprime mortgage crisis and should have a moratorium on foreclosures for homes where there is a disparity between the true value of the home and the hypothetical value until the disparity is resolved (ABI World.org 1/8/08). When you have a conservative pundit like WFB, who actually is a thinking conservative, calling for government intervention, we all should listen. Write your congressman and senator.