Cincinnati Sues Seller of Foreclosed Homes, Claiming Predatory Behavior -
By MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN and ALEXANDRA STEVENSONAPRIL 20, 2017
In recent years, private investment firms sold foreclosed homes on high-interest installment
contracts to poor Cincinnati residents who could not get traditional bank mortgages.
Harbour, city lawyers said, has been selling “substandard” homes to buyers in Cincinnati who often default on the contracts
because they cannot pay for the repairs or keep up with the monthly payments.
Now, the city is cracking down, calling those who offer such deals “predatory” actors targeting the “unsuspecting and vulnerable.”
In a sweeping lawsuit, Cincinnati took aim at one of the nation’s largest sellers of foreclosed homes, Harbour Portfolio Advisors, saying
that the firm owes more than $360,000 in unpaid fines, fees and violation notices.
The lawsuit against Harbour, which is based in Dallas, is the first of several
that Cincinnati plans to file against out-of-state firms that acquired rundown homes in the wake of the housing crisis and then resold them at inflated prices without making repairs.
Investment firms like Harbour scooped up the run-down, foreclosed homes at bargain prices, selling
them to families who could not get conventional mortgages but were desperate to own homes.
Paula Boggs Muething, the Cincinnati city solicitor, whose office is overseeing
the Harbour lawsuit, said other Ohio city attorneys had also expressed concern.