ML-Implode News - Mortgage investors' inevitable constitutional challenge to eminent domain

``Yes, the much-discussed eminent domain mortgage seizure idea is finally being realized, despite vehement opposition from just about the entire financial industry. It's been more than a year since a San Francisco outfit called Mortgage Resolution Partners first floated the concept of partnering with troubled cities to reduce foreclosures by using the city's eminent domain power to seize mortgages of underwater homeowners in the name of the public good. (MRP's role is to provide cities with capital for the eminent domain purchases, issue modified mortgages to homeowners and then bundle and resell the new loans as mortgage-backed securities.) Proponents have pitched the plan as a public boon, a way to keep homeowners in their houses and preserve neighborhoods that would otherwise be blighted with foreclosures. The concept was alluring enough that over the last year, officials in several California cities, as well as North Las Vegas and even Chicago, have toyed with using eminent domain to stave off foreclosures.''

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Mortgage investors' inevitable constitutional challenge to eminent domain