This is an outrage. Is there no respect for private property in this county, or the rule of law? Is the bank out of compliance with the mortgage? Doesn't sound like it. It even sounds like the man had his day in court. That's how we do it in this country. We don't summon a bunch of faux victims to stand around and waste the police's time. Faux victims who were summoned by text message provided by the very same companies who they hate. Oh, the irony.

Dean, you are both an asshole and an illinformed one at that. The economic collapse of 2007-2008 was largely due to illegal practices of the banks. Having enough influence (read: money) to repeal legislation and push policy that favors your interests might be legal, but certainly it is not ethical. Foreclosure activists might break the law by occupying a property to prevent eviction, but the ethic motivating our work is sound.

I agree, what a waste of SPD's time. Rather than evicting people both willing and able to pay their mortgages, while the county's homeless rate has crept up year after year according to the count, is ridiculous. They should be going after Routh Crabtree Olsen and others who are profiting from some seriously unlawful dealings.

You're trying to create a diversion. The blame for the economic collapse has nothing to do with the contract between this man and his bank. Either he signed the mortgage, or he didn't. Sounds like he did, and again, sounds like he was able to make his case in court.

Yours is not a sound ethic. Going outside the rule of law damages your credibility. If you're willing to break the law in this case, in what other circumstances might you do so? Selling alcohol to minors? Tax evasion? The list could be endless.

Further damaging your credibility is your anonymous nature on this thread. Why won't you use your real name? Why won't you stand behind your comments?

dean.fuller, you're right. Principled civil disobedience has never accomplished anything. We should just accept bad laws, rather than fighting to change them.

Further proving that corporations as people matter more than the ones knit of flesh and blood.

Apparently Wells Fargo's right to property trumps the working man's.

I am also a homeowner in foreclosure and a very proud member of SAFE. I put my hard-earned deposit money down on my first home in 2007. In retrospect, the home was vastly overvalued, and I foolishly put a lot of trust in people and institutions which had no regard for any of us as individuals. I was talked into allowing my son's father, who was chronically unemployed, into being the sole carrier of the mortgage. They went on his stated income instead of my steady unemployment. "Don't worry!", they said. "When you re-fi, you can put it in your name. Your interest rate will be through the roof if we put you on this mortgage!". And I believed them. I believed the bank and the broker. That was a deadly mistake. I guess I should have employed a team of lawyers to verify that this was a sound loan, but I had to put $20,000 into a house, so there ya go. I know now that they wanted this loan to fail. I know now that they just wanted the land, the only thing of value there is.

The subprime speculation which occurred and the crisis which unfolded was no accident. My hundreds of hours of research has unearthed countless, heartbreaking stories of hard-working Americans whose homes were cruelly and illegally taken from them in what I see as the largest land-grab since Europeans first landed on this continent. This is not some weird new lefty cause, Dean. If this hasn't affected you or someone in your social circle, you are a rare and fortunate person. Count your blessings, and wish the rest of us luck. We are NOT "faux victims". We are human beings who were thrust into this predicament and now we have taken the time and effort to connect the dots. What the banks have done is illegal, and all we are trying to do is to keep people in their homes until the full extent of what put this country into a recession and who is actually to blame can be hammered out in the courts. Subprime mortgages are no different than the junk bonds that put this country in a crisis in the 80's and it is now wreaking havoc on the entire world's economy. We are calling for a return to a sustainable, local economy. We are demanding that those at the helm of these mega-banks who have no interest in any of us or the health of our nation be held accountable. I would personally like to see the note on my house! They can't provide it for me. When Countrywide (my lender) was dissolved due to their own failure, my loan went into a blender of speculators and MERS robo-signers and who knows where else to the point where I don't even know who to talk to about my modification (which is the same with Jeremy). Make no mistake - they want our land and these houses to artificially increase the values of homes - like yours, probably - which are still inhabited. Your taxes increase while the banks just sit on the the rest of their "inventory" while paying NO taxes and wait for the next bubble which will burst when those houses are released. Don't believe me? Go to Redfin or Zillow and do a search of "bank-owned/not for sale" homes in your area. There are 7 in a 2-block radius of my home. That's seven families not paying taxes to fund our schools. That's 7 families forced into an artificially-inflated rental agreements, likely paying money to the same speculators/vultures who buy these houses at auction. When the market gets (artificially) better, they'll put them up for sale again. There will be a whole new generation of suckers who buy into the American Dream who will sign on the dotted line, unaware that they are being lied to and deceived. One illness, one layoff... that's all it takes. All your hard work will be gone, and there will be no one to help you. No one except SAFE, that is!

This crisis affects everyone, and I mean everyone. There's so much information out there. I hope you're not simply satisfied with poo-pooing a few "lefties" because it's fun that's what you *always* do. In this case, there's a real crisis, and every day I give thanks that there are people out there who give a damn enough to help people like me fight this injustice. I was turned down by every institution who was listed on the notice of default. My bank wouldn't even take my money. If nothing else, look at what the banks did to military families. You can't be supporting that, right??

And in case you didn't know, when a bank forecloses on a home, they get not only the value of the original loan and what it gets at auction, but also the value of whatever they sell it at down the road when the "market gets better". That's a whole lot of profit for not a lot of work. I believe the proper term is "making a killing". If only we could make money so easily. And hey - if the math gets fuzzy and it puts the country into another recession/depression, they'll just ask for another government bail-out! Your tax dollars at work, Dean...

"If only we could make money so easily." You can! You can! Are you somehow prohibited by law from the hard work that will make you financially successful? You have the ability, if you apply yourself, to be a bank or mortgage executive - or any one of a number of people who might make small or large amounts of money in a bad economy. Why do you sell yourself so short?

Good job, SAFE!

Dean, when the banksters who tanked our economy are prosecuted for their fraud, let's talk about compliance.

"Dean, when the banksters who tanked our economy are prosecuted for their fraud, let's talk about compliance."

The Justice Department has already investigated it. The Obama Justice Department, which seems to have an anti-capitalist bent. They didn't find much of anything that rose to the level of a crime.

#7: Do you take any responsibility for what seems to be a poor decision on your part as well? Perhaps one isn't in the right financial situation to buy a house when both owners are (as you described) unemployed or chronically unemployed.

Are you kidding me, Dean? The banks and their brokers used lies and coercion to get trusting people to sign on to crappy mortgages at inflated prices. Banks approved people who had questionable means to pay. The excuse used by the brokers? If you can't afford it, the banks will not approve you, so lets run it through them. Lies and deceit. OMg. Then they created fraudulent documents cause they were successfully and aggressively closing so many loans their notary's couldn't keep up. Greed. Plain and simple. Fraud. Immoral and unethical behavoiur.

If I sold you a rotten bill of goods, would you not come back to me for a refund or sue for restitution? Of course you would.

"If I sold you a rotten bill of goods, would you not come back to me for a refund or sue for restitution? Of course you would."

But that's not what's going on here. He's squatting. He had his day in court. Apparently the bank's case was more compelling. That's how we do it in this country. It's called the rule of law. You go before a judge with no certainty of winning.

Wrong wrong and wrong by all sides. What the banks did was wrong. However, someone signed a contract and could not fulfill said contract. That is no ones fault but their own. If you and I entered into a financial contract and you could not uphold your end, I would take back what is mine. Depending on how big a douche you acted like, I may negotiate a way to let you keep your stuff. However, you try to make a big stand? You lose. It is extremely unfortunate that the banks are still taking it out on people who got stuck in a bad situation. I am just pointing out that there are laws surrounding entering into contracts and ignorance does not absolve you from holding up your end. Buy only what you can afford. If you lose your job, if you cannot pay on said contract, that is not the other party's problem. They can work with you or simply call their marker. That is business, that is how it goes. Don't sign off on something you cannot pay.

Dean,

Private property and the rule of law, as you mentioned initially, are at the crux of our differences. I believe our society should be organized so that we take care of everyone's basic needs, so that everyone should have food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, transportation, leisure time, and so on. These needs should be regarded as inalienable human rights. Technologically, we are capable of providing these basic needs to everyone on the planet, but we don't, because the economies across the globe, including our own, are based on the accumulation of profit, where the right of a few to privately own the resources of the planet for their personal benefit trumps the right of the majority to secure their basic needs. In a profit-first economy, the wealthiest among us have undue power and influence and write the laws to support their position in society.

Because of private property and the law that supports this principle, the majority of people cannot buy a home without first taking out a loan from a bank, which is written entirely in the bank's favor for the exclusive purpose of producing profit for the bank. It is not a contract between two equal parties. If you have, say, a family medical catastrophe you may have to choose between the health of your child or paying your mortgage. If you had a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, you might go into default after missing two payments even if you've had a perfect payment record up to that point. Other than the rich, is there anyone among us who can predict what will happen to them over a period of 30 years?

The counter argument is, "If you cannot handle the consequences of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, then don't borrow this money." But the conceit here is that only the rich should own homes. If you believe this, then we are at an impasse.

To those saying this is Jeremy Griffin's fault: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…

Hey there CHRISTOPHER ALLEN HORTON.

Why is it that you use all caps except when you are using someone's moniker? For the life of me, I do not understand why you use the format you do.

When the banks attack, stand up fight back. SAFE (Standing Against Foreclosure & Eviction), look it up. www.SAFEinSeattle.org is about educating the ignorant and supporting the people of our great nation. I believe in Freedom! This idea that Jeremy is a leach of some sort is ludicrous. Jeremy got tanked when the banks tanked the economy, some, like, 80% or more of the people were affected. The unemployment rate is soaring, as are the underemployment rates. Jeremy is a laborer and as such may have been an easy target. I am a highly educated individual, BSEE & MBA, and my job rates have plummeted by 2/3's. So a job that I used to get $125/hr now only yields $35/hr. Try to make the same payments on housing with that. Dare you!
The economy, aka the jobs market, is dictated by the corporate bankers, they manipulate it illegally (read the news). The fact that I cannot find a job is not my fault it is the dictate of the central banks.
We currently live in a society that has convinced some portion (hopefully small), that the economic crisis is the fault of the worker, when in fact it is the fault of the central banker, the too big to fail banker.
We must fight back. Anyone on this response list that argues for the banks, is dilusioned; exactly how they, the bankers, wish. You are controled, not Free. Most conservatives that I have met agree with my liberal opinion based on the desire for freedom from tyranny.
Contract law is only valid when both parties are privy to the rules of the game. The mortgage industry concealed the rules of the game. That includes all banks; everybody having to be like the Jones' next door.
I embrace libertarian rules, but it only works when both parties are fully informed and completely honest. That has not been the case with mortgages.
Workers just want a place to live, to call home, the bankers just want profit. These goals are incompatable. We must stop the banks from robbing us of our equity, our assets, our homes.
I choose freedom and justice. The big banks provide neither.
In Peace,
Sonia

Dean Fuller:do you worship Satan?(And why did The Stranger "forget" to mention the fact that the Socialist Workers' Party has fronted candidates for both mayor of Seattle, Port Commissioner,and County-Council's Sixth District? --- http://www.themilitant.com/2013/7710/771…

Here's the correct link ------ : http://www.themilitant.com/2013/7710/771…