homes in foreclosure - with about a third of that number occupied by someone other than the owner. Sharga said there are more than 1 million U.S. 'From all the numbers we have seen, we know (they) are going to be exploding,' he said. This year the county is on pace to see 4,500 such evictions, he said.ĭart warned that because the eviction process on foreclosures can take more than a year, the number is sure to climb even higher. The state's attorney's office said it would not comment on conversations with Dart because his office is a client.įoreclosures have skyrocketed around the country in recent months and Dart said the number of foreclosure evictions in Cook County could more than double from the 2006 tally of 1,771. 'But I'm also in charge of making sure justice is being done here and it is clear that justice is not being done here.' 'My job as sheriff is to follow court orders, absolutely,' he said. This week, an attorney asked that Dart be held in contempt when his deputies did not evict tenants after determining they were not the owners and did not know about their landlord's financial problems.Ī judge denied the attorney's request, Dart's office said, and Dart said that after talking to the Cook County state's attorney's office, he is confident he is on solid legal ground. In many cases, he said, tenants aren't even aware that their homes have fallen into foreclosure. He talked about tenants who dutifully pay their rent, then leave one morning for work only to have authorities evict them and put their belongings on the curb while they are gone.īy the time they get home, 'The meager possessions they have are gone,' he said. Illinois law requires that renters be notified that their residence is in foreclosure and they will be evicted in 120 days, but Dart indicated that the law has been routinely ignored. He said the sheriff in Philadelphia helped push a moratorium on foreclosure sales, but that involved owner-occupied homes and not renters.ĭart said that from now on, banks will have to present his office with a court affidavit that proves the home's occupant is either the owner or has been properly notified of the foreclosure proceedings. 'I haven't heard of any other sheriff unilaterally deciding to stop foreclosures,' said Rick Sharga, senior vice president of the Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, Inc. 'We have to be sure that when we are doing this - and we are destroying some people's lives - we better be darned sure we're talking about the right people,' Dart said.ĭart said he believes he's the first sheriff in a major metropolitan area to stop participating in foreclosure evictions, and the publisher of a national foreclosure database said he's probably right.

'We will no longer be a party to something that's so unjust,' a visibly angry Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said at a news conference. The sheriff here said Wednesday that he's ordering his deputies to stop evicting people from foreclosed properties because many people his office has helped throw out on the street are renters who did nothing wrong.

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