Posted 6/01/2010 06:23:00 PM by Douglas

Upside-down in a mortgage? Wondering if you should just stop paying and walk away? Why bother? Just stop paying. Are they really going to throw you out?

“Instead of the house dragging us down, it’s become a life raft,” said Mr. Pemberton, who stopped paying the mortgage on their house here last summer. “It’s really been a blessing.”

A growing number of the people whose homes are in foreclosure are refusing to slink away in shame. They are fashioning a sort of homemade mortgage modification, one that brings their payments all the way down to zero. They use the money they save to get back on their feet or just get by.

Fuck, why didn't I think of that? STOP paying your bills for financial obligations you willingly entered into. These guys are brilliant. A downside? Is there a moral dilemma?

This type of modification does not beg for a lender’s permission but is delivered as an ultimatum: Force me out if you can. Any moral qualms are overshadowed by a conviction that the banks created the crisis by snookering homeowners with loans that got them in over their heads.

That's right. The evil bank gave me this loan. They knew I didn't qualify for it, but they gave it to me anyway. Well I'm just not going to pay.

“I tried to explain my situation to the lender, but they wouldn’t help,” said Mr. Pemberton’s mother, Wendy Pemberton, herself in foreclosure on a small house a few blocks away from her son’s. She stopped paying her mortgage two years ago after a bout with lung cancer. “They’re all crooks.”

These people don't need to be thrown out of the houses they can't afford. They need to be thrown in the bottom of a well. Is it too late to bring back debtor's prisons?