Eminent Domain Foreclosure Scheme Rejected in So. Cal.

Last year some local investor groups (Mortgage Resolution Partners) in southern California, specifically, San Bernardino County, pitched the idea OF using EMINENT DOMAIN as a way to foreclose on underwater homeowners and get values going at more market realistic levels again. The idea was to foreclose on the mortgages that were underwater, then revalue at existing market values and refinance them. Only trouble is that a number of homeowners who were, for the most part, still hanging in there and making payments would have found themselves out of their homes. Last month the Joint Powers Authority (JPA), formed by the county and two of its cities, Fontana and Ontario, to consider the idea rejected it. They noted that to permit such a use of eminent domain would not only harm more homeowners, it likely would also weaken further the already reeling local housing market.