Retiree James Lowery was set to lose his $145,000 house this Saturday over a $4,889.46 sewer debt he had mostly paid off.
He got a last-minute reprieve — until February. Then the sewer authority has court permission to return with another sign for an auction on his house.
“It’s bad out there, man,” Lowery said. “They say if you don’t pay your sewer bill they have the right to take your house.”
The Covid-19 mercy period has ended for working-class homeowners like Lowery who are buried in lawyer fees and other costs associated with back debts. The state court system has allowed debt-holders to have debtors’ homes foreclosed upon and auctioned off again, starting this Saturday, Oct. 3.
Some cases, like Lowery’s, have been postponed.
Snow Turner, too, had a sign placed in front of her Fair Haven home announcing a foreclosure sale this week for a debt that began as $1,193.18 in unpaid sewer bills and then more than tripled thanks to piled-up fees. She, too, has received a few months’ reprieve, as the foreclosure clock keeps ticking.
Foreclosure sales had been put on hold since March 19 in Connecticut due to orders by Superior Court Judge Abrams, chief administrative judge for the state judicial system’s civil division. He lifted the order on Sept. 24, allowing foreclosers to seek court dates for auctions.
The first set of auctions, scheduled for this Saturday, originally included a whopping 21 in New Haven, where tough economic times have left homeowners like Turner struggling to emerge from ever-increasing piles of debt. (Often parties settle at the last minute, or work out repayment plans, in the days before a scheduled auction, leading to the auction being called off.)
A federal moratorium continues protecting homeowners with federally insured mortgages, according to Judicial Branch spokesperson Melissa Farley.
That leaves holders of other liens to decide whether or not to proceed with backed-up auction sales. Some agencies, like the Regional Water Authority, are holding off from seeking to seize people’s homes or push them to the brink with increased fees. Others, like the City of New Haven and the sewer authority, aka the Greater New Haven Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA), asked and won permission to put up those signs.
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https://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/foreclosures/
