by Calculated Risk on 12/27/2010 09:09:00 AM

From Megan Woolhouse at the Boston Globe: At housing court, final pleas to head off evictions

If foreclosure is the final chapter of homeownership, a court eviction hearing is the weary epilogue.

Just two years ago, hearings involving foreclosed homeowners were relatively rare, occurring once a month or less. But soaring foreclosures, which have continued to rise in recent months, have flooded the court with such eviction requests.
...
On this Thursday at Boston Housing Court, there were nearly 30 cases, involving people from many walks of life, from a single working mother to a 75-year-old retiree to a city police officer.

Some manage to postpone eviction, while others are not so lucky.
...
Usually, foreclosure is a kind of death sentence for homeowners. While state law protects renters living in foreclosed apartments from sudden eviction, banks are under no legal obligation to let former owners stay.

I'm surprised by how many former homeowners are fighting eviction - and by some of the numbers in the article like a homeowner making $32,000 per year who had a monthly mortgage payment of $3,200 - how was that supposed to work? And a retiree whose mortgage interest rate jumped from 11.3% to 17.3%. Really? Who was the mortgage lender and what kind of loan did he have?