New Haven Independent

Now the house is officially Docket No. CV 09-6000862S Structured Asset Securities Corporation Mortgage Pass Through Certificates 2006-BC2 vs. Rafael Munoz et al.

Here’s the trail to foreclosure, as revealed by the public record:

To finance this purchase, the owner, Rafael Munoz, took out a mortgage of $209,000 from the above named entity. Within two months mortgage payments were not being made, and, according to the public record, a default judgment was entered in August.

By then, reflecting the complicated bundling of mortgage securities, the plaintiff’s name on the foreclosure documents had, in addition to the above, U.S. National Bank as trustee for the above and care of American Servicing Company for Norwest Home Improvement of Ft. Mill, South Carolina.

Roll ahead several months, and Munoz seeks a dismissal of the foreclosure suit based on a technicality related to the transfer of the mortgage. Admittedly the transfer was complicated. Still the court rules in the bank’s, or the plaintiff in the foreclosure’s favor agreeing with the plaintiff’s statement that the request for dismissal was a “smoke screen, a delaying tactic.”

By August, 2007, Munoz files papers to delay the foreclosure action, but by the end of November, a judgment was sought against him for what’s known as “strict foreclosure.”

As opposed to foreclosure by sale when outsiders can bid, strict foreclosure is sought when the amount of debt exceeds the equity in the house. In Munoz’s case, by the end of last year the debt, with interest, had ballooned to about $245,000, and the appraised value of 45 Frank had plummeted to approximately $160,000.

That was at least higher than the sale price of the house in November 2003 when one Monica Gilmore-Kinsley bought it for $130,000. She held onto it until she sold it to Munoz in 2006 for $220,000.

By terms of the strict foreclosure, the only parties to the procedure are those who hold debt - in this case the bank with the increasingly long care/ofs, to the tune of $245,000. There were also two other liens against the property - the city of New Haven for $1,000 for back taxes, and the Internal Revenue Service for $6,700.

On Saturday morning, the bank made a bid of $204,000 to repossess the property. According to Attorney Michael Burt, the court-appointed committee, who conducted the auction, there were no other bidders so the bank won the house.

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