Senate Bill 1150, authored by Senator Mark Leno and Senator Cathleen Galgiani, is intended to prevent additional, needless foreclosures on widows, widowers, and other heirs in California.
To better understand why SB 1150 is needed, consider the recent story of Jose Hernandez, a widower living in Sacramento, who is slated to lose the home he occupied with his late wife until she passed away in 2011:
Although he inherited the property when his wife died, Hernandez is not protected by California’s Homeowner Bill of Rights, a set of regulations that require lenders to work with homeowners to help them save their homes from foreclosure. He’s not protected because his name was not on the loan or title.
Instead, Hernandez said he’s been lost in the lender’s maze of paperwork and people.
“I must have faxed the death certificate over a dozen times,” Hernandez said. “They said they couldn’t find it. In the end, they just want to foreclose on the property.”
Read the whole story here:
Leno bill would strengthen family heirs’ homeownership rights (Melody Gutierrez, San Francisco Chronicle, July 1, 2016)
SB 1150 provides critical protections for widowed spouses and other survivors including domestic partners, heirs, siblings, joint tenants, and other people who own their homes but who weren’t listed on the mortgage. SBOR closes a loophole in California law that fails to provide important protections to surviving homeowners (against foreclosure) that are available to other homeowners.
If you’d like to get involved, here’s how you can help:
- If you organization would like to be listed as a SUPPORTER of Senate Bill 1150, please contact Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition: kstein AT calreinvest.org.
- If you are a surviving homeowner and would be willing to share your story, please reach out to Sean Coffey, media manager at the California Reinvestment Coalition: scoffey AT calreinvest.org.
- Reach out to your assembly member, and ask them to support Senate Bill 1150. A vote is expected on the bill in August. You can find who your assembly member is here: Who is my California Assembly Member?
