EDITORIAL

from the payments she and her late husband had made over 40 years in their home. Because she didn’t know about the leftover money, she signed her rights over to Anderson for $2,000.

Even worse than Anderson’s scheme are outright frauds, who find a case with an unclaimed surplus and file for it, claiming to be the former homeowner. Incredibly, all someone had to do to steal the $38,636 Thurgood Linebarger had coming to him from the sale of his onetime home was to file a request for it in Linebarger’s name. There was no hearing or even requirement for identification.

When no one objected to the motion after a few weeks, Judge Kimberly Cocroft ordered a check cut in Linebarger’s name to be sent to the address on the request. The check eventually was cashed, with a signature that doesn’t match Linebarger’s handwriting. He knew nothing of it until Dispatch reporters contacted him.

O’shaughnessy and Franklin County Common Pleas Court Administrative Judge Stephen L. Mcintosh now say they are developing a process to notify foreclosed homeowners of surplus funds due them. Anyone requesting disbursement of surplus funds will have to attend a court hearing.

Not only is that common sense; notification has been the clerk’s responsibility under state law since 1986. But courts and, if necessary, state lawmakers still should do more to ensure that people who’ve lost their homes don’t also lose out on the equity they built.

Homeowners should be informed at the beginning of the foreclosure process, before the sale is held, that the sale could generate a surplus for them. They also should be invited to give updated contact information to the court, because even in counties where clerks routinely mail notices of surpluses, they often go to the address of the foreclosed properties after the former owners have moved out.

Any case in which the former homeowner has signed away rights to the surplus should receive extra scrutiny. The court should verify that the homeowner understood what was happening.

And in any case, such as Linebarger’s, in which a fraud is discovered, police and prosecutors should make every effort to find and prosecute the thieves.

Foreclosure predators should be put out of business for good.