From AZCentral.com:
Surprise (Arizona) police Tuesday arrested a man they say stripped his foreclosed home of fixtures and other equipment.
A grand jury indicted Garcia on charges of criminal damage and defrauding a secure creditor, giving police probable cause to arrest the former Surprise resident at about 1:25 p.m. on Tuesday.
My reaction?
It’s about time.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of empathy for people that lose their home. For many, things are completely out of their control and it is a very sad thing.
But as a real estate broker, I see homes all the time that the owner has completely trashed. Nothing appears to be safe from these types. Missing cabinets, counter tops, flooring, air conditioning units, toilets ”“ you name it and some pissed-off disgruntled “victim” of foreclosure has stolen it.
Yes, stolen it. It is stealing people, plain and simple.
Read the comments on the AZ Central article. Some people are saying the cops are screwing this guy, some practically make him out to be a hero.
He’s an accused thief, plain and simple. He was under contractual obligation to maintain the home. That’s part of the deal when you get a mortgage – the lender has a lien on your home and has the right to recover the asset if you fail to pay back your loan. And part of that asset includes fixtures attached to the home.
Let’s say you get a car loan and for whatever reason stop making the payments. You know the repo man is dropping by for a visit soon. Do you rip the seats out of the car, remove the engine, put the car on blocks and swipe the rims? Every day people are doing tens of thousands of dollars of damage to their homes – homes bought with loans the owner is under contractual (and ethical) obligation to maintain.
Maybe you think, “So what. The banks are the ones that have to eat the loss and they deserve it!”
Wrong. If you are a homeowner, Joe Thief’s criminal act just negatively impacted YOUR home value. Like it or not, when your neighbor guts his house, the value of your home declines.
So Joe Thief isn’t just screwing the bank. He’s screwing you, too.
Shar Rundio wrote a great post last month citing the specific Arizona statute on this very subject. Arizona Revised Statute §44-1219 makes it a Class 5 Felony to strip your home prior to foreclosure.
Here’s something to ponder as you are taking a crowbar to your kitchen – is this sink and faucet really worth spending time in the pokey married to Bubba and his pals?
If you’ve never seen first-hand what some people do to their homes, here is a short video I shot back in January at a trashed out home in Agritopia. There are worse examples, believe me.
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was started by Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... he liked to say...
I love the classic beep from the smoke detector that I hear in 50% of vacant homes. The biggest thing I have seen stolen from a house was the corner gas fireplace. They left the kitcen sink but took the bathroom sink.
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People don't rip out the seats of repo cars because lenders hit them up for the deficiency.
That's a good point Terry. And maybe if lenders (and police) would pursue people that rip apart homes, this nonsense would stop?
These people can't be that hard to track down. Here's a "Foreclosure Sale" ad that was posted to CraigsList six minutes ago:
http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/hsh/1214928062….
Note they are selling "Beautiful Oak Kitchen Cabinets". Granted, maybe these aren't installed and were bought outright. It may be perfectly legit for this person to sell them. It was just the first ad I found in 10 seconds on Craigslist… I bet there are more, and totally illegitimate ones.
Hey Jay,
I totally agree with you there. It is stealing and vandalism. I have seen some cases where they have even stripped the copper piping out in order to sell it for scrap metal. It makes the home really hard to sell with the gyprock damaged because someone wanted to get the piping out. These are crazy times.
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I am glad he was indited. It is stealing – plain and simple.
I was in a house the other day that didn't have any light fixtures, light switches, cabinets, toilets, sinks, AC etc, They would have taken the showers if they knew how to get them out. The only good thing…. it didn't smell like a dead animal.
**Irene Hammond´s last blog post..Inventory is down, pending closing up, all improvements</abbr></abbr>
Agreed Jay. Not only do taxpayers pay for the damage when we lose value on our own homes, we often pay for the replacements & repairs in the gutted house. How? FHA buyers are often successful when they ask the bank to repair/replace items, using the grounds that FHA won't fund the loan without repairs/replacements.
To play devil's advocate: it's interesting to me that the homeowner charged has a Hispanic name. Couldn't the police at least have tried to find someone named Jones or Smith so they didn't leave themselves wide open for the lawyers to cry racial profiling? What do y'all think?
**Heather´s last blog post..Moving Stills 64 – Parking Lot Shade Trees</abbr></abbr>
GREAT post, Jay. I also sympathize with many of the homeowners losing their homes, but vandalism and theft are NOT the answer. I hope they continue to prosecute the offenders. They are an insult to those that do their part to maintain their homes and neighborhoods.
I agree that it is stealing but I can relate. I have been there and have been disgruntled but not enough to trash something because I know some one else is going be using it or has to pay for it. Two wrongs do not make a right. Regards!
It is so sad to see what people are doing to their homes when they get foreclosed on-it makes it hard to feel bad for them, really. They don't own the home, and thus they don't own the cabinets, lights, etc that came with the home, so it SHOULD be against the law to take them. I agree, it can't be hard to track down these people, after all, you have all their information from the orininal loan. I am glad Garcia got arrested and will be held responsible for gutting his home.
Many of the foreclosed homes in the area have had thieves (not the tenant) break in and steal the place blind. The price of copper has dropped somewhat lately that stealing the pipe isn't quite as profitable as it was. One of my clients was taking a bath when two guys, who thought the house was empty, were in the basement and starting cutting out the pipes. Dummies didn't even bother turning the water off. Boy were they surprised when my client came out in his towel and a gun. They ran off quickly.
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I completely agree, you are just creating a problem for the next person. They are going to have to spend thousands of dollars replacing the fixtures and wiring. I have heard of cases in Detroit where people are going into abandoned and foreclosed homes and stripping out all of the expensive copper wiring. Although, when my grandmother moved once we did take the dining room chandelier and replace it with a cheaper one, I think she would have a heart attack if we left behind something her husband hand made.
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The house strippers don't own the house, the bank does. It is stealing. I can get desperation but it is not just hurting the bank it hurts everyone. The neighbors don't deserve to live next to a disaster either.
What is crazy to me is KARMA… Arent people afraid of that at all! You are exactly right. I agree, it is definately sad for people losing their home, but dont destroy the home and hurt someone else in the process.. Regardless of it being the banks or not, someone is getting the nasty end of the stick, whoever the lender is, didnt get payments, now they get a thrashed house. Thanks for sharing.
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I couldn't agree more. Likel you said, your heart goes out to a person who loses his or her home, but stripping the house before you move out is nothing less than stealing. Period. Great post.
In some circumstances, foreclosure rescue services can be beneficial to the consumer. When refinancing options are exhausted and foreclosure proceedings have led to near eviction, a foreclosure rescue transaction with moderate fees and full disclosures can be legally and ethically executed.
It is about damn time!
I hope this arrest gets a lot of continued media coverage. Hopefully that will then get the message out to these low-lifes who strip their houses before letting them go to the banks.
There is absolutely no reason to be removing A/C units, etc. and putting them on CraigsList or wherever. Speaking of CraigsList and all the other places items like this are sold, the police department should have detectives calling on these ads and meeting with, then arresting the seller, period.
That, along with huge media coverage of these "sting" type arrests, should bring this activity to a grinding halt.
**Matt´s last blog post..Paradise Valley Sales Report – May 2009</abbr></abbr>
I recently saw pics of a McCormick Ranch condo that had been stripped to the drywall. The former owner ripped out the furnace, pulled up the carpet, removed all of the cabinets, and even took the front door.
**Travis Bohling´s last blog post..$15,000 Tax Credit</abbr></abbr>
"…a McCormick Ranch condo that had been stripped to the drywall."
That is absolutely sickening Travis.
"People, they're the worst!" – Seinfeld (LOL)
**Matt´s last blog post..Paradise Valley Sales Report – May 2009</abbr></abbr>
….The owner of that McCormick Ranch condo that stripped it prior to foreclosure has been identified and the details reported to the Scottsdale Policy Dept. A detective is on the case and hopefully justice will be done! These folks need accomodations at Sheriff Joe's house!
But wait, should we just assume that it's necessarily the home-owner who's stealing from the house? I mean, some of those homes have been sitting around so long that it seems there are probably criminal pros who are casing houses that they know are in foreclosure. Unless we find that person selling the stolen items on Craigslist, then how else can we prove who actually stole it? It seems unfair to make a blanket statement blaming home-owners when it seems plausible that burglars are also doing what they do best. I mean, are these houses really being closely guarded after the owners leave? I'm guessing the banks don't have much time for that. (???)
I believe Xica is right. While there are home owners who are stripping their homes, I truly believe there are criminals taking advantage of the current economic situations as an easy way to generate some quick cash.
Xica has a bit of a point-foreclosures that have sat around a long time are prone to getting things stolen from them; HOWEVER, there are so many homes that also are missing items that should be there (like the counter tops or cabinets) when the first walk throughs from foreclosure are done. Also, many of the home owners tear apart the home, putting holes in the walls, leaving trash all over, or even writing horrible messages to the HUD reps on the walls…pretty sure a burglar doesn't care about leaving messages to HUD…
It is about time, indeed! Anything else you haven't paid for gets reposessed-you don't get to keep parts of it-why would a home be different? Until it is paid off, that home-and the walls that hold it together-don't belong to you.
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Come on out to Camden, NJ where they do this to practically every house. There is a Section 8 part of our city where an apartment in liveable condition would sell for $50,000. The way that some of these thugs trash the place, banks and the market is having a tough time at $15,000 sales. Seriously!
It is certainly a good thing the police are starting to crack down on home owners who intentionally trash and strip their home after being foreclosed upon. It is such a shame people do that.
It's a shame to have to worry about this kind of thing. I guess morality and brotherly love are rare things to find these days.
**San Francisco Kid´s last blog post..San Francisco, CA Median Home Value</abbr></abbr>
I also agree with you…
because now money talks… maybe???
I also agree with you. I've seen so many foreclosed homes for sale in Vancouver where thievery has taken place and my clients routinely inflate the cost to repair by a factor of 2 or 3 times more than the actual cost to repair. In the end the property with $10k in damage may sell for $30k to $50k less. The selling bank takes a bigger hit but, I think more broadly, when that home sale becomese a comp to which other neighboring non-damaged homes are measured by — those nearby home sellers may also be taking valuation hits as well. So you neighbors, it may pay you to keep watch over the nearby vacant houses!
I have a different take. The banks and government caused the mortgage crisis through greed and a lack of regulation. Banks made billions, Fannie Mae officials got tens of millions in bonuses. So, the government gives the banks get a bail-out with the homeowners tax money….. then arrest the homeowner for stripping the house. I think some of the bankers and Senators should do a little time for causing this mess. Not the guy just trying to survive. So, arrest the guy who lost his job on the assembly line at Ford or GM because he took some fixtures out of HIS house. I guess it is true, crap rolls down hill and the little guy is at the bottom.
LOL….as usual the little guy is paying the bill and getting screwed…if the banks knew this would happen to almost every home that they are screwing a family for…the ones that are not in jail for screwing these families (the real felons, and you know it, self righteous SOBs) and the world economy for quick profit because "everyone else was doing it", might be a little easier to get along with. If your home is being foreclosed in spite of legitimate efforts to stave off ARM and economy collapse…rip it up sell the pieces on ebay, burn the frame and salt the ground…note most of the people above are the same realtors that f*****d y'all in the first place! And oh yeah, J Thompson and AZ cops especially, Shame on you.
Harry –
What ever.
I didn't "f**k anyone in the first place". I don't condone illegal activity, whether it's by banks, real estate agents, or home owners. Nor do I appreciate people that comment on my blog doing so.
Stripping a home of anything of value is wrong, but where is it outlined what you can and cannot sell? What items qualify as a fixture? Refrigerator? Dishwasher? Washer/Dryer? Ceiling fans?
When I bought my house it didn't have ceiling fans or a dishwasher, I bought those. Can I not recoup my expenditures and return the house to the state it was when purchased?