Baltimore County officials hope to reduce the number "nuisance houses" and reports of students misbehaving in off-campus housing by cracking down on land lords who violate the County's zoning code.
The Baltimore County zoning code states that unless a structure is zoned as a "boarding or rooming house" no more than two unrelated individuals may reside in the same home. The code does not apply to apartment buildings.
Baltimore County spokeswoman Ellen Kobler said the code isn't new, but the push to have residents report violations stems from "complaints in the community."
In August the County issued a press release, coinciding with the start of the fall semester, to remind residents and students about the County's housing code. The release also urged residents to report any housing code violations they observe.
Kobler said the fines can reach $200 daily for each housing code violation at a residence.
"If an infraction is found, there would be a violation notice and a citation sent to the residents and the land lord," Kobler said. "If necessary it could go to a hearing board."
The County is also reaching out to colleges in Baltimore County, including Towson University, to educate students about proper behavior students should display while living in residential communities.
"There's a real effort made on the part of the University and the County to be mutually beneficial to each other," Kobler said. "The county executive works with officials from Towson, and we know that a majority of students are good neighbors. We just want to ensure that everybody is following rules so that people can live comfortably."
Jana Varwig, associate vice president for student affairs, said students who live off-campus received letters during the summer about the University's expectation for students in Towson's residential neighborhoods. The letter did not specifically focus on the County's housing code, she said.
"The University does not see its role as managing this particular code. We will be glad to make sure that students are aware, but it's not our role to enforce it," Varwig said.
Varwig said that she believes the surrounding community is accepting of TU students.
"We have some very welcoming neighbors. Many of our neighbors went to college and are willing to work with students. But sometime there are some instances where students' behavior crosses the line," she said. "Noise, intoxicated behavior, public urination, all that can be troubling to live next door to. Our real tactic is to do what we can to educate students so they can learn to be good neighbors. It's part of moving off campus and growing up."
Most of the complaints about TU students are related to noise violations rather than housing code violations, Varwig said.
Students who violate the University's code of conduct could face fines, and an investigation from judicial affairs.
In Fall 2006 judicial affairs received 38 complaints about houses and issued 15 warnings.
"If we receive a complaint, an officer from the Towson University Police Department and a student life representative will visit the house to talk to the students about how to work with their neighbors," she said. "If we receive another complaint, then we'll launch an investigation. And we can charge the student up to $250. They could also be placed on University probation." (www.thetowerlight.com)
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Mayor Dixon Focusing On Development, New Top Cop
The election is behind her and Mayor Sheila Dixon is looking ahead to perhaps her most looming task: appointing a top cop for Baltimore.
"I'm going to make a decision very soon because we need to have the police department focused and not worried about who's going to be the commissioner," Dixon said.
A biotechnology park next to Johns Hopkins is already in the works and now the mayor wants to focus on developing the east side of the city around it, with businesses, housing and a new charter school. In all, it's a project that requires some creative financing, borrowing $85 million.
"So that whole area is going to be stimulated by helping families in the community one, be able to have opportunities for jobs and training, two, quality housing, and then three, a great K-8 school that's going to focus on medical and bio to prepare our kids to get in that arena," she said.
City council members have priorities of their own. Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, fresh off her election victory, is targeting heroin addiction, hoping to push for more doctors in the city to prescribe the treatment drug buprenorphine.
"Heroin addiction is a terrible problem in the city and if we make inroads in heroin addiction, we would slow the engine that is our criminal justice system down," Rawlings-Blake said.
Among the dozens of other bills high on the administration's priority list: regulating valet parking services in the city and reserving some city parking spaces for car-sharing vehicles.
The mayor has a deadline. These bills must be acted on by the first week in December, when the new councilmembers take office. If not, those bills will have to be introduced all over again.(CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
"I'm going to make a decision very soon because we need to have the police department focused and not worried about who's going to be the commissioner," Dixon said.
A biotechnology park next to Johns Hopkins is already in the works and now the mayor wants to focus on developing the east side of the city around it, with businesses, housing and a new charter school. In all, it's a project that requires some creative financing, borrowing $85 million.
"So that whole area is going to be stimulated by helping families in the community one, be able to have opportunities for jobs and training, two, quality housing, and then three, a great K-8 school that's going to focus on medical and bio to prepare our kids to get in that arena," she said.
City council members have priorities of their own. Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, fresh off her election victory, is targeting heroin addiction, hoping to push for more doctors in the city to prescribe the treatment drug buprenorphine.
"Heroin addiction is a terrible problem in the city and if we make inroads in heroin addiction, we would slow the engine that is our criminal justice system down," Rawlings-Blake said.
Among the dozens of other bills high on the administration's priority list: regulating valet parking services in the city and reserving some city parking spaces for car-sharing vehicles.
The mayor has a deadline. These bills must be acted on by the first week in December, when the new councilmembers take office. If not, those bills will have to be introduced all over again.(CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Monday, September 17, 2007
Court to hear foreclosure case
Decision in appeal by Howard Co. man could affect similar cases
The Maryland Court of Appeals has agreed to hear arguments in the foreclosure case of Kwaku Atta Poku, the Columbia cab owner who lost his home after refinancing, despite making every mortgage payment.
The decision by the state's highest court to review the case pleased Atta Poku and his lawyers, and the outcome also could affect how Maryland courts handle similar cases as foreclosures become more common in the slumping Maryland housing market.
Gerald M. Richman of Ellicott City, one of Atta Poku's lawyers, said the court will "determine whether or not you have a right to appeal a foreclosure action."
Another issue is whether a home can be foreclosed on when the lender has exclusive control of the funds to pay off the mortgage. Atta Poku never had possession of the settlement check involved in the 2001 refinancing that later resulted in foreclosure. He could not prove the mortgage was paid, however, because a bank lost the original check.
The Court of Appeals said a hearing will be scheduled in December after submission of legal briefs, according to an order received Friday by another of Atta Poku's lawyers, Scott C. Borison of Frederick, a foreclosure specialist.
Depending on what the court decides, homeowners could gain a better chance to defend themselves.
"It may alter the [foreclosure] process," Richman said.
Maryland law allows mortgage holders to foreclose in a few weeks, without having to prove the homeowner was notified.
"It's predictable there will be other people like Mr. Atta Poku," said Phillip Robinson, executive director of Civil Justice Inc., a nonprofit public advocacy law firm that has been allowed by the court to join in the Atta Poku case. "We're also seeing a substantial increase in the number of title companies using escrow funds to pay operating expenses."
With some members of the General Assembly planning to revise Maryland's laws next year to give homeowners more time and notice to fight mortgage company foreclosures, Robinson said the Court of Appeals could help by clarifying the legal issues.
For Atta Poku, the news stirred an emotional response.
"Oh ... oh ... I don't know what to say," he said, after hearing Monday of the court's action. "I didn't have a chance [in court]. All that I tried was in vain."
The 2005 foreclosure on his Columbia townhouse, and his family's August 2006 eviction, was upheld May 8 by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals on what his lawyers said were technical grounds, including his inability to post a required bond. The Court of Appeals decision gives Atta Poku new hope and a chance to argue the substance of his case, his lawyers said.
Borison and Richman said Atta Poku will not regain possession of his house, which was sold after the foreclosure.
But if the Court of Appeals decides the taking was not justified, it would give Atta Poku a stronger legal basis for damage claims that he is also seeking.
Washington Mutual Inc., the Seattle-based mortgage company that took his house, maintains that its action was proper, pointing to court rulings that sustained the foreclosure. Shane A. Winn, a company spokesman, declined to comment yesterday, noting pending litigation.
"Oh, my Lord, that's wonderful!" Richman said when he learned of the court's decision to hear the appeal.
Robinson said the court takes fewer than 10 percent of the cases it is requested to review.
Atta Poku's house was sold less than six weeks after he first received notice that Washington Mutual, which refinanced his loan in 2001, claimed that the first mortgage was never paid off.
Atta Poku, 55, a naturalized American citizen originally from Ghana, was unable to prove in court that the loan was paid, as he insists it was, partly because the financial institutions involved lost some of the documents.
Although no one -- including Washington Mutual -- has blamed him for the alleged default, he lost the house, has ruined credit and his AAAA Star cab business was damaged.
The family of five, including his wife and three children younger than age 5, is being aided by a small cash fund administered by Columbia's Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center, and by Congregations Concerned for the Homeless, a Howard County nonprofit group that rented a three-bedroom townhouse last week for the family to sublet. (By Larry Carson, Sun reporter)
The Maryland Court of Appeals has agreed to hear arguments in the foreclosure case of Kwaku Atta Poku, the Columbia cab owner who lost his home after refinancing, despite making every mortgage payment.
The decision by the state's highest court to review the case pleased Atta Poku and his lawyers, and the outcome also could affect how Maryland courts handle similar cases as foreclosures become more common in the slumping Maryland housing market.
Gerald M. Richman of Ellicott City, one of Atta Poku's lawyers, said the court will "determine whether or not you have a right to appeal a foreclosure action."
Another issue is whether a home can be foreclosed on when the lender has exclusive control of the funds to pay off the mortgage. Atta Poku never had possession of the settlement check involved in the 2001 refinancing that later resulted in foreclosure. He could not prove the mortgage was paid, however, because a bank lost the original check.
The Court of Appeals said a hearing will be scheduled in December after submission of legal briefs, according to an order received Friday by another of Atta Poku's lawyers, Scott C. Borison of Frederick, a foreclosure specialist.
Depending on what the court decides, homeowners could gain a better chance to defend themselves.
"It may alter the [foreclosure] process," Richman said.
Maryland law allows mortgage holders to foreclose in a few weeks, without having to prove the homeowner was notified.
"It's predictable there will be other people like Mr. Atta Poku," said Phillip Robinson, executive director of Civil Justice Inc., a nonprofit public advocacy law firm that has been allowed by the court to join in the Atta Poku case. "We're also seeing a substantial increase in the number of title companies using escrow funds to pay operating expenses."
With some members of the General Assembly planning to revise Maryland's laws next year to give homeowners more time and notice to fight mortgage company foreclosures, Robinson said the Court of Appeals could help by clarifying the legal issues.
For Atta Poku, the news stirred an emotional response.
"Oh ... oh ... I don't know what to say," he said, after hearing Monday of the court's action. "I didn't have a chance [in court]. All that I tried was in vain."
The 2005 foreclosure on his Columbia townhouse, and his family's August 2006 eviction, was upheld May 8 by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals on what his lawyers said were technical grounds, including his inability to post a required bond. The Court of Appeals decision gives Atta Poku new hope and a chance to argue the substance of his case, his lawyers said.
Borison and Richman said Atta Poku will not regain possession of his house, which was sold after the foreclosure.
But if the Court of Appeals decides the taking was not justified, it would give Atta Poku a stronger legal basis for damage claims that he is also seeking.
Washington Mutual Inc., the Seattle-based mortgage company that took his house, maintains that its action was proper, pointing to court rulings that sustained the foreclosure. Shane A. Winn, a company spokesman, declined to comment yesterday, noting pending litigation.
"Oh, my Lord, that's wonderful!" Richman said when he learned of the court's decision to hear the appeal.
Robinson said the court takes fewer than 10 percent of the cases it is requested to review.
Atta Poku's house was sold less than six weeks after he first received notice that Washington Mutual, which refinanced his loan in 2001, claimed that the first mortgage was never paid off.
Atta Poku, 55, a naturalized American citizen originally from Ghana, was unable to prove in court that the loan was paid, as he insists it was, partly because the financial institutions involved lost some of the documents.
Although no one -- including Washington Mutual -- has blamed him for the alleged default, he lost the house, has ruined credit and his AAAA Star cab business was damaged.
The family of five, including his wife and three children younger than age 5, is being aided by a small cash fund administered by Columbia's Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center, and by Congregations Concerned for the Homeless, a Howard County nonprofit group that rented a three-bedroom townhouse last week for the family to sublet. (By Larry Carson, Sun reporter)
Friday, September 14, 2007
Foreclosure rates climb
Marylanders better off than nation overall as variable mortgages reset
As homeowners struggled to make higher payments on adjustable mortgages, the rate of new foreclosures this spring soared to its highest level in the nearly three decades that records have been kept. Maryland, however, had a smaller rate of new foreclosures than many states.
The handful of large states feeling the brunt of the credit crisis helped to push new foreclosures in the second quarter to 0.65 percent, or 65 for every 10,000 loans, the Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday. The rate of residential loans considered delinquent (at least three months past due) jumped to more than 5 percent of the nation's 44 million loans, up from 4.37 percent of loans in spring 2006.
Maryland, which has faced a less severe housing downturn than other states, had a lower rate of loans entering foreclosure -- 0.36 percent. Of the just over 1 million loans being serviced in the state, about 3,750 were sent foreclosure notices in the second quarter, the bankers association said. The MBA figures for states are not seasonally adjusted. On a nonadjusted basis, the U.S. had new foreclosures at a rate of 0.59 percent.
In Maryland, though the percentage of new foreclosures was small, it has grown rapidly. In the second quarter of 2006, Maryland's rate was 0.19 percent, having nearly doubled. That is still less than rates as recently as several years ago, when Maryland's rate often topped 0.50.
Delinquencies and foreclosures are rising primarily because of homeowners falling behind on payments as adjustable rates have reset, said Doug Duncan, the banking association's chief economist. Many borrowers took out adjustable loans with lower introductory rates as a way to afford homes that soared in value during the real estate boom.
The adjustable loans make up a big share of mortgages in states such as California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, where investors were especially active and contributed to soaring real estate values that have since fallen, the MBA data showed.
"They are seeing declining house prices, which makes refinancing these ARMs difficult," Duncan said.
"The same forces at work nationally are at work in Maryland; they just haven't had as severe an impact," said Anirban Basu, chief executive of the Baltimore economic consulting firm Sage Policy Group Inc.
"Many people took on adjustable-rate mortgages, and many of those mortgages are still in the process of resetting, and there still are people finding they cannot afford those mortgages," Basu added. "Housing appreciation has slowed in Maryland ... and that is conducive to higher levels of foreclosure."
Phillip R. Robinson, executive director of Civil Justice Inc., a public interest law group in Maryland that helps victims of predatory real estate practices, said much of the data on foreclosure and delinquency rates appears to be conflicting.
But he said it is clear from the deluge of borrowers turning to his group for help that the number of homeowners in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure is increasing steadily.
"There's a dramatic increase and shift in the kind of homeowner calling us," Robinson said. Previously, his group saw mostly "a homeowner who's had a devastating life event and is not able to make payments."
But now, he continued, "We're seeing a huge increase of very-good-credit borrowers who got mortgage loans that were unsuitable for them in the first place. The professional they relied on steered them to the highest-cost loan in which the professional could make a profit. They've gotten themselves in over their head. These are prime borrowers in subprime loans."
Still, Maryland has fared better than many states and the nation as a whole.
"Housing prices in Maryland have by and large held up pretty well," Basu said. "There is no part of the state where housing prices have fallen substantially ... so as a result when people fall behind on their mortgages, they don't go into foreclosure. They can sell their home."
Delinquency rates in the United States rose from the second quarter of 2006 for both prime loans and subprime, which are loans made to borrowers with weak credit, according to the MBA report, a survey of about 120 mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts.
Duncan, of the MBA, said turmoil that has emerged in the credit markets since the end of the second quarter has further limited borrowing options for homeowners wanting to refinance high-cost loans.
And that means, he said, more increases in delinquencies and foreclosures before those rates hit a peak.
The upward trend, Duncan predicted, probably will continue more than the one to three economic quarters previously forecast.
(By Lorraine Mirabella, Baltimore Sun reporter)
As homeowners struggled to make higher payments on adjustable mortgages, the rate of new foreclosures this spring soared to its highest level in the nearly three decades that records have been kept. Maryland, however, had a smaller rate of new foreclosures than many states.
The handful of large states feeling the brunt of the credit crisis helped to push new foreclosures in the second quarter to 0.65 percent, or 65 for every 10,000 loans, the Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday. The rate of residential loans considered delinquent (at least three months past due) jumped to more than 5 percent of the nation's 44 million loans, up from 4.37 percent of loans in spring 2006.
Maryland, which has faced a less severe housing downturn than other states, had a lower rate of loans entering foreclosure -- 0.36 percent. Of the just over 1 million loans being serviced in the state, about 3,750 were sent foreclosure notices in the second quarter, the bankers association said. The MBA figures for states are not seasonally adjusted. On a nonadjusted basis, the U.S. had new foreclosures at a rate of 0.59 percent.
In Maryland, though the percentage of new foreclosures was small, it has grown rapidly. In the second quarter of 2006, Maryland's rate was 0.19 percent, having nearly doubled. That is still less than rates as recently as several years ago, when Maryland's rate often topped 0.50.
Delinquencies and foreclosures are rising primarily because of homeowners falling behind on payments as adjustable rates have reset, said Doug Duncan, the banking association's chief economist. Many borrowers took out adjustable loans with lower introductory rates as a way to afford homes that soared in value during the real estate boom.
The adjustable loans make up a big share of mortgages in states such as California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona, where investors were especially active and contributed to soaring real estate values that have since fallen, the MBA data showed.
"They are seeing declining house prices, which makes refinancing these ARMs difficult," Duncan said.
"The same forces at work nationally are at work in Maryland; they just haven't had as severe an impact," said Anirban Basu, chief executive of the Baltimore economic consulting firm Sage Policy Group Inc.
"Many people took on adjustable-rate mortgages, and many of those mortgages are still in the process of resetting, and there still are people finding they cannot afford those mortgages," Basu added. "Housing appreciation has slowed in Maryland ... and that is conducive to higher levels of foreclosure."
Phillip R. Robinson, executive director of Civil Justice Inc., a public interest law group in Maryland that helps victims of predatory real estate practices, said much of the data on foreclosure and delinquency rates appears to be conflicting.
But he said it is clear from the deluge of borrowers turning to his group for help that the number of homeowners in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure is increasing steadily.
"There's a dramatic increase and shift in the kind of homeowner calling us," Robinson said. Previously, his group saw mostly "a homeowner who's had a devastating life event and is not able to make payments."
But now, he continued, "We're seeing a huge increase of very-good-credit borrowers who got mortgage loans that were unsuitable for them in the first place. The professional they relied on steered them to the highest-cost loan in which the professional could make a profit. They've gotten themselves in over their head. These are prime borrowers in subprime loans."
Still, Maryland has fared better than many states and the nation as a whole.
"Housing prices in Maryland have by and large held up pretty well," Basu said. "There is no part of the state where housing prices have fallen substantially ... so as a result when people fall behind on their mortgages, they don't go into foreclosure. They can sell their home."
Delinquency rates in the United States rose from the second quarter of 2006 for both prime loans and subprime, which are loans made to borrowers with weak credit, according to the MBA report, a survey of about 120 mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts.
Duncan, of the MBA, said turmoil that has emerged in the credit markets since the end of the second quarter has further limited borrowing options for homeowners wanting to refinance high-cost loans.
And that means, he said, more increases in delinquencies and foreclosures before those rates hit a peak.
The upward trend, Duncan predicted, probably will continue more than the one to three economic quarters previously forecast.
(By Lorraine Mirabella, Baltimore Sun reporter)
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