Mark Winston Griffith

State Senators: Save our Homes with the Deed Theft Bill. Now.

As the clock on this year's legislative session in Albany winds down, advocates across the state are wondering if the New York State Senate will help put an end to an ugly and cruel form of real estate scamming.

In the predatory practice known as "deed theft" or "foreclosure rescue scams", speculators, from New York City to Buffalo, swoop in on homeowners who are having financial difficulty and promise to bail them out - if they just sign over the deed of their home. In this act of fraud, homeowners, often senior citizens, lose the precious equity in their homes and are eventually evicted. And as lives of homeowners are destabilized, so goes the neighborhoods they live in, making low-income areas like Bedford-Stuyvesant, where folks often store the only wealth they have in their homes, ripe for further speculation and gentrification.

The good news is that New York State is tantalizingly close to clamping down on deed theft. The Home Equity Theft Protection Act (S. 6824), which glided through the Assembly and actually has the support of the New York Bankers Association, not to mention hundreds of consumer and community groups throughout the state, is awaiting a vote on the floor of the Senate. According to a news release issued by the New Yorkers for Responsible Lending, a state coalition of 121 groups, the bill "would require written disclosure to homeowners regarding the terms of the title transfer, and provide a right to cancel the deal for five days after signing the contract. It would prohibit making false statements with intent to defraud the homeowner. The legislation would establish civil and criminal penalties for violating the law."

Last year, the legislative session ended before the Senate could vote on it. With the legislative session ending next week, the same threat looms.

This is an easy lift for the Senate and, more importantly, an easy way to protect vulnerable New Yorkers. Senators, it's time to earn your keep.

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Posted at 11:57 AM, Jun 14, 2006 in Community Development
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