Foreclosures

Many vacant, neglected homes remain in the previous owners' names.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Neighbors and regulators often can't figure out who is responsible for neglected, foreclosed homes because mortgage lenders routinely do not file paperwork documenting their ownership for months or even years, records show.
The problem has intensified with the recent explosion in foreclosures. Ohio leads the nation in foreclosures, with about 59,000 notices filed last year.
A review by The Columbus Dispatch of property deeds showed that lenders often don't file deeds on a house they have foreclosed on until they have found another buyer. The delay means city code-enforcement officers can't figure out who to serve with notices and fines for violations.
Observations
Richard Manuel, an activist who tracked vacant houses on the city's south side for eight years, said he often found evidence that rundown houses were owned by lenders who left them in the previous owner's name.
"Then when we'd call the bank, they'd claim they didn't own the house," Manuel said. "They would deny even having known of the house. Then we'd find later they sold the house."
Don Marconi, senior vice president of Liberty Savings Bank in Wilmington and a past president of the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association, said back taxes and other problems can delay a lender's filing of a deed transfer for several months. But he could not explain longer delays.
"We file the deed as quickly as we get it," he said.
A duplex on the city's west side, which was foreclosed on in 2001 and repossessed in 2004, is still in the name of the previous owner.
"Nothing's happened," said Tamara Maynard, a Columbus code-enforcement analyst, "still vacant, still an eyesore and still a problem for the neighborhood."
Dennis Reimer, a former lawyer for IndyMac Bank, which repossessed the property, said lenders don't purposefully delay filing.
In the two months following the Aug. 26 sheriff's auction of foreclosed properties in Franklin County, only 11 of the 76 deeds transferring ownership to mortgage lenders had been filed with the county recorder's office. Of the unrecorded transfers, 17 properties had pending or recent code violations.
Officials' actions
City officials said they have started checking records from the weekly sheriff's auctions to record the new owner's name instead of waiting for the deed to be filed.
"Our position is once the sheriff issues the deed, then that property belongs to the person who bought the property," said City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr.
Officials also advocate making a state law that would require the deed transfer to be filed within 30 days.