Sheriff Tom Dart: The Right Idea, The Wrong Solution. Protecting Tenants Whose Landlord Has Been Foreclosed
I’ve written before about how the foreclosure crisis has impacted tenants in Connecticut.
The situation is sickening. I represented a 100 year old woman who lived alone in an apartment for close to 20 years and always paid her rent on time. She lived on the same street for over 40 years. Even at age 100, she was living by herself in Hartford.
Her landlord failed to pay his mortgage and as a result the bank foreclosed and filed eviction paper work against my client.
She was distraught that she was being evicted and within weeks of being served a notice to quit found herself in the hospital for the first time in her life. She died several weeks later. Her official cause of death was ”natural causes” but the doctor could have written “eviction.”
I’m very sympathetic to tenants who wind up in this situation.
Our legislature should act and afford these tenants greater protection under the law.
That being said, I was appalled at what I was hearing on CNN radio while driving into work this morning.
Cook County, Illinois, Sheriff, Tom Dart was explaining that he is refusing to evict tenants whose landlords were foreclosed on.
Residents of foreclosed properties in Chicago and other parts of Cook County don’t have to worry about deputies forcing them out. Sheriff Tom Dart says that starting Thursday his office won’t take part in evictions.
Dart says he’s concerned that many of the people being evicted are renters who were unaware that their landlords have been failing to pay their mortgages. He says his deputies have no way of knowing whether they’re removing someone who has defaulted on a loan or someone who has been faithfully paying rent. AP Story.
As much as I agree with Sheriff Dart that something should be done to protect tenants in this situation, I strongly disagree with his refusal to carry out court orders.
Dear Sheriff Dart, we are a nation of laws, not of men.
This is a case where the “cure” is worse than the disease. It is not a sheriff’s job to determine what laws he thinks should be enforced. It is a sheriff’s job to enforce the law.
It is the legislature’s job to protect its citizens. This is the way our system works.
Shame on the Connecticut legislature for not doing more to protect tenants who find themselves in this situation.
If our legislature can pass laws about monogramming dentures, it has the time to both examine and act on this problem.
What say you? I’ve made it much easier to comment and I always welcome discussion.
October 9th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I can’t be too hard on Sheriff Dart. He’s putting his neck out to call attention to a serious problem. I know, I’m engaging in an ends justifies the means analysis, but what is the harm? The banks collect the rent, the tenants stay in their homes. The legislature needs to take action, of course, and it’s not Sheriff Dart’s decision whether or not to enforce the law, but I don’t have the same visceral reaction.
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October 9th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Dear CT Lawyer,
He’s refusing to follow the law. He said on CNN that it is his obligation “to do justice”. Over the past 8 years, as a country, we’ve had government officials who believe that following the law is optional. It’s not.
It’s sad that it’s come to this but I simply cannot respect Sheriff Dart’s arrogance.
An official refusing to follow the law because of his own political beliefs is a greater evil than obeying a law that we may agree is unfair.
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October 9th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Dart is probably tared of doing everybody’s job. Thre areCirtian procedures He has to do are suppose to be done by the landlords and others. They are not doing them. Bravo to Dart.
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October 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
great post hope to see some additional comments next Thursday…see ya
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October 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Marty P, I hear you but at least in Connecticut it’s a judge’s job to make sure that banks comply with applicable laws and procedures.
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October 9th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SAY THANK YOU TO SHERIFF DART FOR BEING THE ONLY ONE OF THE FEW TO STAND UP TO WASHINGTON AND THE GLOBAL BANKERS!
http://www.cookcountysheriff.org
sheriff@cookcountysheriff.org
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October 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 am
A question . . . I certainly hear a lot about the rising tide of foreclosures in Connecticut, but is there a place to find hard data on just how many residential homeowners are facing foreclosure in Connecticut and on how this compares to previous years?
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Ryan Reply:
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:32 am
Doug,
I’m unaware of a place on the internet that provides hard data on the number of foreclosures in Connecticut. Every so often the Courant or a Connecticut newspaper will do a story and reference the data.
http://www.courant.com/business/hc-countrywide1007.artoct07,0,1133905.story
Thanks for reading.
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