[ToucanLoucan]

> For a guy like the one in the post to show up, you probably would have had to completely ignore probably a dozen of these documents for at least 6 months, not paying your mortgage all along.

I find it interesting that in all of these discussions it's treated as known that the person at hand is ignoring the notices and just pretending they aren't in danger of losing their home, just like in issues of evictions for rent, it's treated that for some reason the tenant has decided they don't need to pay. When IMO, in both of these, it's much more reasonable to assume they can't pay.

Maybe it's just a reflexive self-protection thing in people. It's easier to watch/envision a family being forced out of their home via state violence if you assume they were just stupid/inept in some way, that they did something wrong. That the very same thing couldn't happen to you because you would never just not pay your mortgage. And I mean, same. I would never not pay my mortgage. But I can easily conjure all kinds of nightmares that would render me unable to pay my mortgage.

Maybe people just don't like thinking about that.

[analyte123]

I'm aware that many of these people couldn't pay, mostly for lamentable reasons outside of their control, but pretending nothing is wrong usually doesn't help a bad situation. Ignoring letters from the IRS doesn't make you not owe them taxes. Ignoring letters from your lender or their lawyer doesn't make you owe less money. You still owe the money and it costs you interest and time that you could use to negotiate a settlement or forbearance. Perhaps if you make your situation bad enough, it's easier to file for bankruptcy and start over, but I doubt that people are thinking that far.

In any case, it's a big stretch to call eviction "state violence". When they're even involved, the sheriff is mostly helping to enforce a private contract between the homeowner and their lender. The only conceivable alternative to this situation that still allows lending or private property to exist at all is for the police to not exist and everyone enforces their own contracts with their own violence.

[rufus_foreman]

>> In any case, it's a big stretch to call eviction "state violence"

No, it's not, that's exactly what it is. A guy with a gun and a badge coming to your residence to enforce a contract is "state violence".

To me that's a legitimate use of state violence, but let's call it what it is. No, not everyone gets to enforce their contracts with violence, that's called "The state monopoly on violence".

[orangecat]

A guy with a gun and a badge coming to your residence

"your" is questionable in that scenario.

[fragmede]

the place where you live is your residence, no matter what a piece of paper says. Even if it's a tent on the sidewalk.

[naming_the_user]

I think it's a bit less dramatic than that really - most people accept that the world we live in has both rights and responsibilities.

One of those responsibilities is that by paying for the loans you take out, in exchange you get to keep the things that you've bought using them, permanently once you've paid it off.

I might, one day, be unable to pay my mortgage. That's a risk I'm taking.

People tend to get super emotional about this stuff but at the end of the day it's just business, you have lived somewhere else and you can live somewhere else again.

[frmersdog]

This is an incredibly heartless take, and also one not aligned with the nuances lurking beneath the surface of what "most people accept" (banality of evil and all that). The rent you "agreed" to pay may have been set or raised under circumstances ranging from ethically-fraught to soon-to-be-illegal-but-not-yet-litigated. Your income stream, likewise, might have been disrupted by someone else's malfeasance. Neither the law nor landlords care that you fully intend to - in fact, will have the means to, when everything comes out in the wash - live up to your responsibilities. If the eviction proceedings are carried out before the others, you will lose the home you, by all means except a dysfunctional system that has mistimed just order, have the rights to.

Access to a stable domicile is what defines modern civilization. Philosophically, and ironically, that we have a standardized and systematized method for depriving large numbers of our population of that stability suggests a breakdown in civil order. It's reasonable to have an issue with this system without being "super emotional", but let me be clear in stating that it's also a perfectly reasonable subject to be "super emotional" over. Circumstances outside your control depriving you of a home, even temporarily, is not "just business", it's massive disruption families and communities with material ramifications for their well-being, and in a better-organized society would not happen as often as it does here.

Your flippancy also isn't without its own consequences. It turns what could be a problem with a collaborative, mutually-agreeable solution into one where it's accepted that one party is going to get thrown under the bus. The circumstances currently favor landlords. This can be changed. Careful not to let that cannonball hit you.

[naming_the_user]

Who’s talking about rent here? The article is about mortgages.

When you buy a house you know what you’re getting into.

Sorry, I don’t subscribe to the pessimistic “landlords bad, capitalism bad” viewpoint of the world, not that this has anything to do with that anyway.

[ToucanLoucan]

> Who’s talking about rent here? The article is about mortgages.

I brought up rent. While the long term consequences of paying rent and mortgages are quite different (equity, credit, assets, etc.) ultimately both are equal in that you are exchanging a pre-arranged amount of money on a schedule for a place to live.

Both are also equal in that failure to maintain such a schedule results in houselessness, one notably faster than the other.

> When you buy a house you know what you’re getting into.

A dubious assumption. Tons of people caught up in the 2008 housing crash were sold loans they couldn’t afford by financial professionals who knew damn well they could not afford it. Notably none of those families were made whole, and the banks who facilitated the crash were, because they effectively were wearing economic C4 vests and standing in the center of Wall Street, ready to blow the entire thing to bits.

> Sorry, I don’t subscribe to the pessimistic “landlords bad, capitalism bad” viewpoint of the world, not that this has anything to do with that anyway.

Yet you brought it up.

[hirvi74]

> One of those responsibilities is that by paying for the loans you take out

Sure, if one is a commoner.

If one is a large bank, then the American taxpayers can be forced to foot the bill for the government-funded bailout.

Take an out student loan? One is on the hook until the loan is paid or severely disabled/dead.

Take out a PPP loan? Ah Hell, just keep it. No worries.

[ToucanLoucan]

I wonder how many people who had a PPP loan forgiven complain about student loan forgiveness. I’d be willing to bet it’s nearly all.

[topkai22]

I think you underestimate how painful moving is to some people.

Any house I lived in for more than a year or two I miss. It can be really painful to remember I can’t take my kids to my childhood home because my parents moved. Heck, I occasionally miss living in the first house I bought and I’m just renting that one out.

I don’t disagree that people need to pay their mortgages, but we also should recognize that there are real externalities involved. Thinking you had stability and then losing it hurts. Being forced to relocate hurts. Feeling like you failed your family hurts. Those undergoing that deserve grace, compassion, and understanding. Sometimes they also deserve our charity.

It will still often be necessary for those people to move, but it’s not just a financial transaction for those being forced to leave their home.

[immibis]

Another thing to accept about the world is that "just business" kills millions of people every year, and maybe we should stop accepting it as an excuse.

[yieldcrv]

the reddit post doesn't assume that.