Cleveland Sues 21 Lenders Over Bad Home Loans

The City of Cleveland has sued 21 of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, seeking to win hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild neighborhoods made yet shabbier by the subprime lending crisis.

The city’s lawsuit, filed last week in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, seeks to recover lost tax revenue from devalued property and money spent demolishing and boarding up abandoned houses.

City Mayor Frank Jackson compared the subprime mortgage crisis to drug dealing, saying both stemmed from greed and had a devastating effect on the city.

The two defendant banks with the largest estimated number of foreclosures in the past four years in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County were Deutsche Bank Trust Co., with 4,750, and Wells Fargo, with 4,000. Neither would comment on the lawsuit.

Source: The Associated Press, Thomas J. Sheeran

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