A recent report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer discusses the delays in foreclosure cases in Cuyahoga County.

Cuyahoga conceals foreclosure backlog

Foreclosures vanish from judges' case lists while they are in the hands of magistrates and don't return until the magistrates send them to the judges for final rulings. The practice, said to have started during the Depression, conceals the protracted handling of cases, the numbers of which have surged in recent years.

As of last week, almost 40 percent of Cuyahoga County's 12,755 backlogged foreclosures had dragged out beyond the Ohio Supreme Court's 12-month standard. But reports filed with the high court show only the cases at the judges' fingertips. A report for 2004, the most recent year available, counts only 12 Cuyahoga County cases more than 12 months old.

The Supreme Court guidelines are not mandatory, but justices will send workers to Cuyahoga County to help straighten out the court's reporting.

Shelley Freed Smith of Lakefront Walk complained about the discrepancies in Cuyahoga County's reporting in a letter sent this month to Ohio Chief Justice Thomas Moyer. The empty house next to Smith's home has been in foreclosure for eight years, blemishing a peaceful waterfront enclave near East 156th Street where Smith and her husband, Dave, raise two small children.

The end to Smith's crusade came into view in December when the court referred the property for sheriff's sale. But Smith will not let the matter die.

She wants all foreclosure cases, no matter how old, to show up on the dockets of elected judges.

"It's their job," she said. "There are so many homeowners in Cuyahoga County who are affected by this."

Smith sent copies of her Supreme Court complaint to Cuyahoga Common Pleas judges, sparking a lively discussion last week at their monthly meeting.

Court officials said after the meeting that they might put all foreclosures on judges' dockets or report them separately to the Supreme Court.

Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who has the Lakefront Walk case, said she did not know its duration until receiving Smith's complaint.

Saffold said the case suffered from a number of problems. It was temporarily withdrawn at one point and hit other roadblocks, including incomplete title work and a mandatory halt while the owner went through bankruptcy.

New Court Administrator Thomas Pokorny, a former judge, said the case was passed among three magistrates and got lost in the shuffle. He apologized for the eight-year delay, which he called unusually long.

"My view of it is we have reliable, hard-working staff," Pokorny said. "They have been overwhelmed."

Judge Nancy Margaret Russo agrees that the magistrates are swamped, but she said she and the other judges have been lax supervisors.

"I think they got used to doing things how they wanted to do them," Russo said. "They had no accountability, no one overseeing them. I think we failed as a court. We should have micromanaged it."

Chief Magistrate Stephen Bucha III blames the backlog not on anything the magistrates have done but on the overwhelming number of foreclosures filed in the county.

Under pressure from local officials to speed action on vacant homes, Common Pleas Court recently added a ninth magistrate and plans to hire three or four more. An increase in foreclosure fees will also add 19 workers to help with foreclosures as they pass through the offices of the sheriff and the clerk of courts. The bill will be more than $1.1 million a year.

The magistrates work only on foreclosures. Last year, the county saw 11,076 new cases.

By comparison, Hamilton County's lone magistrate, Richard Bernat, takes in 4,800 to 4,900 foreclosures annually and closes 75 percent of them within the year, said his law clerk, Michael Lubes. He also handles matters such as criminal arraignments, extraditions, protection orders, lease disputes and civil trials.

Bernat does away with steps that critics say Cuyahoga County wastes time on. For example, though Cuyahoga County property owners rarely fight foreclosures, magistrates schedule hearings and give property owners one last chance. Bernat does not bother.

Saffold and Russo called for changes in how the Cuyahoga County court manages foreclosures. They propose designating one or two judges to work only on those cases.

Pokorny said the court will consider recommendations, but he defended the magistrates' fastidiousness. He said it ensures that their rulings will hold up if challenged.

"I'll admit we are very finicky in Cuyahoga County about it," he said. "It's a serious matter."

To view the online article please click on the following link.

Cuyahoga County OH Foreclosure Backlog