Insurance Dispute Lawyer Blog
The Virginia-Pilot profiles a few families harmed by Chinese drywall and the struggle they face in this dire time period. Within this piece is an interesting statement by a local elected official appealing to banks to avoid foreclosure on uninhabitable properties that have Chinese drywall installed within them.
The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating air-quality issues related to the drywall and plans to release some of its findings today and additional reports in the coming weeks. Several local homeowners also have sued the companies that manufactured and imported the drywall.
In the meantime, dozens of families across Hampton Roads face a dilemma similar to the Dunaways’: Continue to live in a home that could be making them sick, or move out and stack a rent payment on top of the mortgage bill.
Local lawmakers are calling on banks and mortgage lenders to help homeowners while the federal investigation is completed. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent a letter last week to the Virginia Mortgage Lenders Association urging its members to temporarily suspend collection of mortgage payments or at least to delay foreclosure proceedings on homes constructed with the tainted drywall until the product safety commission finishes its investigation.
“To foreclose on homes that are uninhabitable, with an unknown range of defects, would only aggravate homeowners’ problems and place you in control of an unsellable property,” Warner wrote
The article goes on, mentioning that U.S. Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Va) had introduced a Congressional resolution in Congress to request that banks and lenders to offer homeowners a temporary reprieve from home payments to avoid such financial catastrophe. These methods of staying the fate of those who have been unfortunate enough to have the toxic wallboard installed in their homes is a good step forward to reaching a satisfactory resolution and assist people who could use some assistance at this time.