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Foreclosure crisis clogs up court system
The national court system is being inundated by record numbers of foreclosures, as clerks struggle to keep pace with fast-changing dockets where banks have canceled hundreds of hearings and judges are deciding if they should dismiss cases that rely on affidavits prepared by robo-signers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Even if the outcome of most cases is unlikely to change, the added scrutiny is causing massive delays, specifically in New York, where the chief judge of the state’s courts is requiring lawyers handling nearly 78,000 foreclosure actions to verify that their clients followed proper procedures. The shoddy foreclosure procedures, and the subsequent suspensions, have also frozen cases in court. The moratorium “means these cases will be sitting there in la la land,” said retired judge Robert Deehl. According to RealtyTrac, more than 1,000 U.S. homes were seized by banks in September, and 23 states require foreclosures to go through the courts. [WSJ]