Moldy Wall, Missing Owner, Faulty Paperwork Leading To F'closure Delays For Abandoned Condo Unit Leave Ailing Neighbor "Living Next Door To Hell"

In Boynton Beach, Florida, The Palm Beach Post reports:

• The mold blooming in unit L-107 at Venetian Terrace is a sickening black wallpaper of flowery-looking growths.Like thousands of homes throughout Palm Beach County, it is in foreclosure, abandoned and caught in a labyrinthine legal system that has left it to putrefy with a leaky air conditioner that leaves dark puddles in the carpet and warping drywall.

• Attorneys say L-107 is a prime example of everything that has gone wrong in real estate: a no-money-down loan on a condo now worth a fraction of its 2007 purchase price, a mortgage that went bad almost immediately, a borrower who walked away, a lost note, unclear ownership rights, and robo-signed documents handled by a foreclosure mill.

***

• But unlike the neighbor of a single-family home that can sit vacant with minor bother, June McCallion lives next door to L-107 and says she is ill from the musty odors invading her home."I've been living next door to hell," said McCallion, 64, who suffers from a degenerative neurological disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and now has respiratory problems exacerbated by the mold. "I would please just like someone to fix this."

• But who? No one is taking responsibility for the decaying condo at Venetian Terrace, and the recent stops and starts in foreclosures as banks review and resubmit flawed court paperwork may allow L-107 to fester indefinitely.

***

• Chase Home Finance, which filed for foreclosure on the unit in April 2008, has been accruing a $250-a-day fine from the city since Sept. 30, when it skipped a code enforcement hearing and failed to clean up the unit.

For more, see Foreclosed Boynton Beach condo causing moldy misery for neighbor.