Richardson says foreclosure of her home was 'improper'

Rep. Laura Richardson now acknowledges her Sacramento house was sold in a foreclosure auction, but says the sale was "improper" because she had reached an agreement with her lender to keep the home out of foreclosure.

From the Associated Press tonight: "Rep. Laura Richardson claimed Friday that her Sacramento home was sold into foreclosure without her knowledge and contrary to an agreement with her lender. She said that she is like any other American suffering in the mortgage crisis and wants to testify to Congress about her experience as lawmakers craft a foreclosure-prevention bill."

Richardson, a Democrat from Long Beach, had earlier denied reports that the Sacramento home was in foreclosure, even as the buyer of the home stepped forward and publicly offered to resell it to her for $535,000, the same price she paid for it in early 2007.

A new wrinkle tonight: The blog Foreclosure Truth reports Richardson also fell behind on payments on her principal residence in Long Beach, and faced possible foreclosure on that home as well: "Turns out her home in Long Beach was also recently in foreclosure with a Notice of Default filed by Title Trust Deed Service Company with the L.A. County Recorders office on March 31, 2008 as document number 546450 on behalf of Litton Loan Servicing. According to that document she was $19,921.74 behind on that mortgage as of March 28, 2008. Checking on the trustee sale number for this default it appears that this foreclosure action has in fact been cancelled -- quite possibly due to a loan modification as claimed." Richardson's office has not responded to L.A. Land's request for comment on that report.

From the AP: "Richardson, 46, makes nearly $170,000 as a member of Congress and was paid $113,000 during the eight months she served in the state Assembly in 2007 before her election to Congress. She also received a per diem total of $20,000 from California, according to a financial disclosure form she filed with the House of Representatives clerk."

The AP report does not detail the agreement Richardson reached with her lender to restructure her Sacramento mortgage, nor does it mention any agreement she might have reached to save the Long Beach home. The lender, Washington Mutual, told the AP it had not received permission from her to discuss the agreement.

Analysis: There are still a number of unanswered question about the congresswoman's mortgages, and whether she received special treatment from her lender when she renegotiated one and possibly two mortgages. She tells the Associated Press that she did not receive special treatment on the Sacramento home, and the lender is not commenting.

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com.

Comments

[aj]

I am sorry to hear this story. There is no accountability.
She should resign.
To think that she could represent her constituents
after this is probably not in the picture.

[CD]

You are on to something here, something big, what kind of goodies our state reps received from the NAR and builders all these past years and where do they all stand in this mess ??

[Uncle Bill Climbs Mont Pelerin]

"Rep. Laura Richardson now acknowledges her Sacramento house was sold in a foreclosure auction, but says the sale was "improper" because she had reached an agreement with her lender to keep the home out of foreclosure."

Bottom line: she lied. No more politics. Buh-bye. Leave now and we won't press for criminal investigation (or at least some of us won't).

"Although others struggling with mortgages make far less, Richardson said it was "very misleading" to compare her earnings to the national median household income of around $50,000. The reason: Lawmakers are required to maintain two residences while other people don't have to, she said."

Lawmakers are required to maintain two residences? Required by whom? Is this true? Or just another "damn the torpedoes" equivocation? Even if true, I doubt there's any requirement they live in $500k homes when they can't afford to. The $20,000 per diem? Was that supposed to go for housing? Could't she have found someone who needed a roommate in Sacramento?

Looks like she was thinking she hit the lottery and she could clean up any messes after she collected.

Testify before congress regarding the plight of the modern day homeowner? Uh-uh... just say no.

I can't wait to hear what kind of car she drives. (or drove before the ship hit the dam).

Can't wait to find out how wamu sold the home in light of the fact that she produced a wamu letter that proportedly shows they weren't going to do that until June. Wouldn't it be fun, too, to see the chain of phone calls between her and intermediaries and wamu in the last few days.

It would be interesting to see who's been advising her these last few days as well. Pete? AP people? Any clue? Who was with her during the interview?

[Uncle Bill Climbs Mont Pelerin]

Remember City of Vallejo from a few months back? Talk of bankruptcy? The other shoe just dropped.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/
la-me-vallejo24-2008may24,0,763402.story

Has anyone had a real good look at the overall state of our city's finances lately? The state of our state's finances? Lots of talks of cutbacks and triage, but how close are we to Vallejo?

[Victor the Predictor]

I predict that she has become too much of a liability for her handlers and that after some more attempts at martyrdom will need to resign for personal reasons.

[E]

Now I get it. The bailout isn't just for Wallstreet and Banks...it's for overspending politicians too!

Living Large off the back of her constituants...priceless!

[Inland Empire]

She will be a long term fixture in politics just like Rangel from NY who leases expensive cars and lets his son use one of them on weekends (a limo of course). And lets not forget Fabian Nunez.
Of course anyone who calls her on this will be deemed a racist.

[Dave P]

I have to say Peter, I don't really see the news in this. Sure, this woman is an irresponsible thief. Sure, she's a politician and we expect our leaders to do better. But so what? Seems that 50% of the buyers in the last 3 years were liars or thieves. This is just one of them.

I don't care to hear every niggling detail about her loan(s). Besides for the obvious schadenfreude, I'm not sure what others are getting from this either. Don't get me wrong, I agree that there was something "reportable" about this story. But you must have filed 9 or 10 posts at least about this, surely this can't be that important?

[MT]

Dave P - how can you not see this as newsworthy?? She (along w/ the rest of Congress) are the ones that are crafting the housing bailout that will affect every one of us. And now we find out she was one of the very same speculators that shouldn't get rewarded for making stupid economic choices. Its absolutely news worthy.

[Chris]

Aren't elected officials supposed to be smarter than everyone else? Honestly how do you get 20k behind on your mortgage when you make 8.5 times that much?

[Duke of Moral Hazard]

And another headline from the Long Beach Press Telegram:

http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_9508907

C'mon people... House Ethics committee, it's been said, will only encourage her to bring her FEC statements in line with her financial realities. FBI needs to get in here... it looks like flagrant mortgage fraud. And she's been stiffing people in her district left and right.

[Matt s]

The banks didnt get bailed out by the gov. They were bailed out by other banks. The fed reserve is not part of the gov. We have a private banking system. Only poor people get bailed out. They are deadbeats. Rich people are better people and generally take care of themselves unlike the poor deadbeat minions who never take responsibility for themselves. Its the poor who caused the subprime crisis.