Strategic Foreclosures Explained by Real Estate Attorney Roy Oppenheim

Hi, Lisa. I wanted to talk a little bit about why the term “strategic default” has become such a prevalent term over the past 60 or 90 days. For one thing the “60 Minute” piece last week brought a lot of attention to what we have been talking about, and what we are finding interesting is that a lot of people who previously have paid their mortgages are now getting very upset and frustrated with the fact that they have seen so many bailouts among the banks, Goldman Sachs, AIG. Of course, now other countries around the world, whether it’s Greece, or parts of Europe, and people are just starting to feel that enough is enough. Even if they can pay their mortgage, what we’re seeing is statistically that one-third of all mortgage foreclosures or defaults right now are actually strategic. These are people who have decided that because they are under water and because they are just fed up with the banks, that they are going to walk away or at least stop paying their mortgages.

It’s kind of like a silent revolution that is occurring. It is effectively like Shays’ Rebellion 2.0. And so back at the turn of the Revolution, you had these farmers who stopped paying their mortgages and they were upset because people were being thrown into jail, debtors prison here in the United States. Well, after Shays’ Rebellion and after the new constitution was created, people were no longer sent to jail for debts. And so what we are going to see here is that there is going to be a silent revolution of people who are going to stop paying their mortgage because they are fed up, their fed up with banks that have basically held this nation hostage by trying to basically blackmail this nation into thinking that they are too big to fail. So, individually, one by one by one, silently we are going to see more and more people default. It is unfortunate, but it is something that is inevitable based on the conduct that we have seen by the banks.

So, again my name is Roy Oppenheim, and I am a forclosure defense attorney and if we can be of any assistance to you, feel free to call us. Thank You.