Homeowners

Borrowers struggling to save their homes from foreclosure desperately need legal help, but that's often when they're least able to afford it. In Maryland, though, nearly 1,000 attorneys are ready to assist for free. Lawyers began signing up to volunteer a year and a half ago, when Maryland's chief judge - alarmed at skyrocketing foreclosures - urged the bar to join the new Foreclosure Prevention Pro Bono Project. Organizers, who had been hoping to recruit as many as 500, have trained 981 attorneys so far in the finer points of foreclosure law and hooked up them up with borrowers or groups helping borrowers.

The Fisher family envisioned a retreat in the backyard of their Baltimore County home — an easy, elegant outdoor living space that would reflect their passion for nature. "I grew up in the country," says Alex Fisher, an investment executive. "There were rock gardens, ponds, streams and a waterfall where we would sometimes camp out. " "We've always enjoyed being outdoors," adds Laurie Fisher, a fashion consultant. "Our son, Davis, will leave for college soon, and we're really embracing this time we have with him. We're happiest relaxing with family and friends.

Albert Lord doesn't like to wait - not in business or on the golf course. The colorful chairman of student loan behemoth Sallie Mae, who's embroiled in a nasty fight over the failed sale of the company, has spent 40 years in the accounting and banking industries. He said that experience should have instilled in him a measure of patience, but it hasn't. Whether in traffic, at the office or on the links, Lord said, he just doesn't like to wait. He can't do much about the first two, but he's got a sure-fire solution for the last one: He's building his own, an 18-hole golf course on land he's acquired amid shuttered tobacco farms and grazing horses in southern Anne Arundel County.

Kristina Suson's home wasn't part of the city's tax sale Monday, but it was a close call. Baltimore places liens on properties for unpaid property taxes, water bills and other municipal debts, then puts the liens up for auction every spring — allowing investors to buy them and either collect or move to foreclose. The city auctioned liens on about 10,600 properties on Monday, finding buyers for 6,545 of them and raising $20 million. Suson ended up on this year's list, to her surprise, after the state retroactively reduced a property tax credit she'd received in 2009.

How many people spend more than half their income on housing costs? More than you might think. In the Baltimore area, one in five households with workers pulling down middle-income or lower-income wages fell into that pinched group in 2010, according to a new report by the Center for Housing Policy . That's nearly 85,000 households "severely burdened by their housing costs. " But it's not quite as bad as the nation overall, with nearly one in four of what the center dubs "working households" falling into that category.

Homeowners who are in trouble on their mortgages or worried that they will get behind in the future can get a free legal consultation at a Jan. 10 foreclosure solutions workshop. The event, sponsored by nonprofits and staffed by attorneys, is scheduled from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 5700 Park Heights Ave. in Baltimore. Homeowners should pre-register by Jan. 6 by calling 410-466-1990, x0. - Jamie Smith Hopkins | The Baltimore Sun

The recent letter critical of the foreclosure settlement ("Settlement leaves out responsible homeowners," Feb. 15) made me sad. Does the writer really think that just because he acted responsibly - paid his taxes, never refinanced, and was current on his mortgage and association fees - that he should be rewarded with a onetime tax deduction? Isn't that just what one would be expected to do? What are we coming to when we think that it is extraordinary to do the right thing? There will be some who will receive settlement money that they don't deserve, but that happens in an imperfect world.

I am concerned as a taxpayer and homeowner about the multi-state settlement in regard to foreclosures and mortgages. I have sympathy toward their plight, but homeowners who had little equity in their homes and thus little to lose have been walking away from them in droves, some with their credit ratings intact as banks have been overwhelmed and unable to complete foreclosure proceedings. Some have lived rent and mortgage free for months and years in houses on which they no longer pay taxes.

A Southern Maryland legislator urged state lawmakers Tuesday to help homeowners on the eroding Calvert County cliffs overlooking Chesapeake Bay contend with an endangered beetle there that is hampering their efforts to save their homes from erosion of the bluffs. "We haven't lost any homes yet but ... it's just a matter of time," said Democratic Sen. Roy P. Dyson. The Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee heard two bills he had introduced. One would require the state under certain circumstances to let property owners destroy some Puritan tiger beetles living in the cliffs if need be to try to shore up their homes.

Beautiful interior spaces are products of time, thought and variety. Time, to acquire the right pieces and pull it all together, and thought, to determine what a space can be, how it should look, the mood it should evoke. Variety, though, is tough to get right. Warm, inviting, interesting décor often balances a mix of styles, colors, patterns, and textures to create those lived-in yet stylish spaces where all the elements "go with" each other but don't necessarily "match." Variety run amuck results in a mish-mash of elements that clash, which is why most homeowners not teamed-up with an interior designer turn to "room collections" presented by home furnishings catalogs and retailers.

A recent analysis offers some good news, at least in the short-term, for those individuals (like me!) who are trying to sell their homes -- outside of Maryland, at least. The rate of those who are seriously behind on their mortgage payments -- a leading warning sign of pending foreclosures -- was a bit better in March at 7 percent nationwide, an analysis by real estate data firm CoreLogic. The rate is down from 7.5 percent in March 2011 and at its lowest point since July 2009. Maryland, though, inched upward from 7.8 percent to 8 percent.

Housing experts say homeowners can wait as long as nine months to get approval to sell their home as a short sale, and efforts are underway to push lenders to give a prompt answer. HouseLogic says homebuyers may find themselves in the position of having to send multiple requests to their lender to ask for approval for them to sell their house for less than they owe while a potential buyer waits in the wings. HouseLogic, a service offered by the National Association of Realtors, provides information on homeownership, such as taxes and insurance.

Starting in July, Baltimore homeowners can expect to see their tax bills get a little lighter. That's when Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's property tax reduction plan goes into effect, resulting in a 2-cent cut per $100 of assessed value next fiscal year. Under the measure, approved Monday by the City Council, taxes on an owner-occupied home valued at $200,000 will drop by $40 next year. The reduction is scheduled to grow to $400 by 2020, though the continued cuts are contingent on approval each year by the city's Board of Estimates.

Like a car salesman, the City of Baltimore started high, came down and ended up making a deal all sides could live with. The city has agreed to give Patterson Park homeowner Maureen Coyle about two years to repay $5,702 worth of property tax breaks that she didn't ask for and that she thought reflected a legitimate discount for being an owner-occupant, Coyle says. On Friday the city's law department emailed her a contract spelling out terms of the deal that will require her to repay $250 a month.

Maryland's law limiting lawn fertilizer practices doesn't kick in for more than a year yet, but state officials are urging homeowners to get a jump on the new curbs by limiting how much grass food they put down now. At a press conference in Annapolis to kick off Earth Week, state Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance said there's no reason not to start using greener lawn and gardening practices at home this year.  He said restoring the Chesapeake...

In an about-face, Baltimore finance officials are telling five city homeowners who received two years' worth of erroneous tax breaks that they can repay the city over time and without incurring interest or penalties.   The city had demanded the owners repay the undeserved historic property tax credits - ranging from $1,700 to $9,200 - within 30 days, or else the city would tack on hefty penalties. The demand came as a shock to owners who said they had no idea they'd been getting unwarranted tax discounts.

The state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation took action Thursday against three groups of companies and individuals it said defrauded Maryland homeowners. The agency said it suspended the licenses of Rockville-based ATT Mortgage Co. and Shawpin Jong, also known as Steve Chung, and accused the firm of getting at least 11 mortgages for borrowers by submitting false employment information about them. The state also suspended the license of Nicholas Elko, who worked with Baltimore-based Equitable Trust Mortgage Corp.

Last week while reporting on the latest tax credit mess , we learned about an obscure 1999 Baltimore law that appeared to have potentially big consequences. It seemed to bar city homeowners from getting both a historic rehab tax credit and a homestead credit on the same house at the same time. If that were the case, it'd be an issue for the 280 owners who currently enjoy both tax breaks. The law states that “the historic property tax credit does not apply to any property for which any other tax subsidy from the City, whether in the form of a tax credit, payment in lieu of taxes, or otherwise, is being received or has been applied for.” Here's the key question: Is the homestead credit a “city subsidy” in this context?

Over the past two years, Maureen Coyle has received $5,700 in property tax breaks that the city admits she never requested for her Patterson Park rowhouse. Now the city is demanding full repayment by month's end. If she doesn't or can't pay by then, the city says she'll be hit with $990 in penalties and interest. "This will definitely be a hardship to put it mildly," said Coyle, a social worker who doesn't have "a spare $5,700 just hanging around. " Coyle is one of a handful of city homeowners who suddenly owe back taxes after The Baltimore Sun reviewed a random sample of homes receiving a tax credit for renovations to historic properties.