HT to Calculated Risk.
Well, this guy didn't fly a plane into the bank and murder employees.
Still, it did take some chutzpah to take a bulldozer to one's own house before the bank seized it.
If the land was worth, say 50K, then this guy just blew a 300K hole into the local bank's balance sheet.
No 'extend and pretend', if the house no longer exists! And since it was bulldozed for the cameras, and the story is broadcast, no way to spin those facts away, either.
Undoubtedly, the bank may attempt to sue or prosecute over this, but do they really wish to be subject to discovery and have to try the cases in front of a small-town Ohio jury? What might come to light that would be of interest to the bank inspectors? Will they give twelve citizens the opportunity to draw their own knives on the bank, all completely legally? And endure the press coverage of the trial and subsequent jury nullification? And watch customers take their business down the street?
News travels fast in small towns!
Cheaper to hire a cleanup crew, and quietly haul the remains away, upon reflection.
The anger is building out there. Murder is not an option.
Creativity, however, can be highly effective.
3 comments:
Wow! How terribly sad. Everybody loses on this. He will almost certainly be prosecuted, and the bank is left with a messed up piece of property. There are no winners in this scenario.
In one of the video clips, the home owner/business man comments about the bank raising his interest rate on his loans when they knew he was struggling to keep up, and therefore setting him up to take his property. None of us can know what sort of business man he was, nor can we know the real motivations of the bank, but on the surface, this does not appear to be working with the man very well. It is not clear whether he was already in bankruptcy or not. If he was, I would have thought a bankruptcy judge would have controlled such matters, and would have tried to protect his home. The other side of the coin is that his home was a rather grand estate, a major asset and worth a pretty penny. This would obviously be considered more than a bankrupt would really need. Exactly what is fair here is not clear as seen from the outside.
But again, there are no winners. The bank will suffer some bad PR as well as a devalued asset. The man will suffer the loss of his home and possible prosecution. Lose-lose. Very sad.
Agreed, everyone loses in a foreclosure/bankruptcy. Looks like reason went on an extended vacation long ago.
However, this act may, in effect, level the playing field between the parties.
Individual businessmen do come back from bankruptcy--some go through it a couple of times on the way to success. A local bank blacklisted by the community is done for, however.
In effect, he raised their risk level to his own, which bankers hate!
I agree, it is terribly sad, and there well may be criminal charges and litigation to arise from this.
Let's see how this plays out.
Unfortunately, OS, there are very few local banks anymore. Most are branches of larger banks that can simply prop them up until the next American Idol causes people to forget all about what they were upset about.
I think it is very likely this man will go to jail. At the very least, he will have a judgment against him for the full previous value of the property, so he will be in debt are deeper than before.
I'd like to think he managed to raise their risk level to his own, but I'm afraid he shot himself in the foot. We will have to see what happens now.
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