Foot-Dragging Lender Says Bronx Firetrap Tragedy Not Its Problem; Foreclosure Sale Never Took Place Despite Obtaining Court Judgment

In The Bronx, New York, the New York Daily News reports:

• Nobody will admit to owning the illegal firetrap in the Bronx where a 12-year-old and his parents died in April.(1) The three-family home at 2321 Prospect Ave. in the Bronx had been chopped into 12 illegal single-room-occupancy units when a blaze broke out April 25.



• City building inspectors filed 11 violations against two entities: Domingo Cedano, whose name appears on the building's deed, and the Bank of New York/Mellon, which has moved to seize the home in foreclosure.



• Both parties denied ownership [] at a hearing before the city Environmental Control Board to answer some $44,000 in fines. Cedano appeared and then left before the hearing began, but his lawyer, Ingrid Wyllie, insisted he wasn't the owner because a judge had signed a judgment of foreclosure on the property in January.



• Steven Pasternak, an expediter representing Bank of New York, said the foreclosure wasn't complete, so the building was still Cedano's problem. Administrative Law Judge Malcolm Spector pointed out that property records listed Cedano as owner on the day of the fire, but gave him until next week to produce his foreclosure paperwork.

For more, see Ownership of Bronx firetrap that killed 12-year-old and his parents in dispute.

(1) For earlier posts on this story, see:

• Tragedy Involving Deadly Bronx Firetrap That Lingered For Years In Foreclosure Spurs Crackdown On Illegally Converted Rooming Houses Throughout City,
• Early Morning Bronx Fire In Illegally Converted Rooming House Leaves 3 Dead, 8 Injured; Firetrap Lingered In Foreclosure Since 2008.