New Haven Independent

The property up for auction on Saturday morning was first-floor unit B-10 in the Mountain View Condominiums, which lie between Springside Avenue and the West Rock Park.

As the clock neared the appointed auction time of 11 a.m., attorney Tiziana Scaccia, the court-appointed “committee,” passed out numbered bidding paddles and took names as the crowd gathered around a card table on the edge of the condo parking lot.

Suleiman Chater started the bidding at $10,000. He went back and forth with the Coleys until they bid $52,000, and he bowed out.

Tiziana had time to say “Going once!” before Leroy Jenkins, the president of Mountain View, and bidder number five, jumped in with a $55,000 offer. He chimed in once more with $56,500, before letting the Coleys take it with a final bid of $57,000. “Sold!”

The two-bedroom condo has been vacant a year. The living room is empty except for a few hangers in the closet and a vacuum cleaner propped against the wall, but the bedroom visible from the side window holds relics of life: sprawled desk drawers, scattered sheets of paper, an empty bookcase jutting into the room, a pile of old sheets. The front door is padlocked shut.

The Coleys (pictured) declined to discuss their interest in the property or their plans for the space.

The condo in question has actually been foreclosed on twice, first when the Bank of New York brought suit against a tenant, and most recently when Mountain View brought suit against the bank

In August, 2007, the Bank of New York first brought a foreclosure suit against Natasha Rochester, who had bought the condo and taken out a mortgage in 2003.

According to Ruth Beaumont (pictured, with Jenkins), an upstairs neighbor and condo board member who has lived in Mountain View for 20 years, Rochester and her children moved in with a new husband last year, leaving the condo behind.

In September, the court made a ruling of strict foreclosure, meaning that the property was repossessed by the bank. As New Haven experiences a wave of foreclosures, part of a nationwide trend, out-of-state lenders have regularly been outbidding potential new owners at the sales — leading to problem properties remain empty and neglected, dragging down neighborhoods.

When the Bank of New York became negligent in its own payments, Mountain View’s condo association brought its own foreclosure suit, which was also successful. This time, the court ruled that the property would be sold at public auction.

Jenkins said he joined the bidding to protect the interests of the condo association. If the condo — appraised at $120,000 by the court and at $126,000 by the plaintiff — had sold for too low a price, its value would have diminished, Jenkins said. He was glad that there was some competition and that the place didn’t go for the original bid of $10,000. “Hopefully the new owners will make some improvements, and it will sell for market value or more,” he said.

Previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:

• Somebody Has Plans For Bassett Street
• Foreclosed, the Khennavongs Leave the Santanas
• Foreclosure Steal May Be Too Good
• 2nd Foreclosure in 3 Months Dims Bright St.
• After Foreclosure, W’ville Owner Still Hopes To Sell
• He’s Not Buying, Yet
• Quiet Foreclosure on Porter Street
• 3 Minutes Too Late
• Historic Gambardella Property Foreclosed
•2 Homes Lost, 1 Gained
• “Everybody’s Got To Eat”
• More Foreclosures, More Signs
• Foreclosure Sale Benefits Archie Moore’s
• Rescue Squad Swings Into Action
• A Bidder Shows Up
• Bank Beats Tanya’s Bid
• Westville Auction Draws A Crowd
• DeStefano: Foreclosure Plan Ready
• Can They Help?
• “We Should Over-Regulate These Bastards”
• Rosa Hears of Rescues
• WPCA Grilled on Foreclosures
• WPCA’s Targets Struggle To Dig Out
• Sue The Subprimers?
• WPCA Hearing Delayed
• Megna’s “Blood Boils” at WPCA Tactics
• Goldfield Wants WPCA Answers
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
• Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
• She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
• Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
•“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
• Struggling Couple Sues Over “Scam”

The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.

For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562-5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.

Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.