Consumer Law

Medical Issues Linked To Some Foreclosures

By M. Stan Herring

The CL&P Blog has posted an article about a study that links medical issues to a large number of foreclosures. The numbers of foreclosures have been on the rise in the past few years; roughly one in every ninety-two households face it. This is partly due to "typical" reasons we often associate with foreclosure such as rising interest rates, irresponsible borrowers, loose lenders and a bad real estate market.

However, the study found that foreclosures due to medical issues make up a very large, and previously unaccounted for, percentage.

Half of all respondents (49%) indicated that their foreclosure was caused in part by a medical problem, including illness or injuries (32%), unmanageable medical bills (23%), lost work due to a medical problem (27%), or caring for sick family members (14%). We also examined objective indicia of medical disruptions in the previous two years, including those respondents paying more than $2,000 of medical bills out of pocket (37%), those losing two or more weeks of work because of injury or illness (30%), those currently disabled and unable to work (8%), and those who used their home equity to pay medical bills (13%). Altogether, seven in ten respondents (69%) reported at least one of these factors.

If you are facing foreclosure in Alabama and would like more information, please read our articles The Three Stages of Foreclosure in Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosure in Alabama.

Feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

Also remember you are invited to our free tele seminar on Alabama Wrongful Foreclosures set for January 19, 2010, at 4 pm CST.

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Full post as published by Alabama Consumer Blog on January 18, 2010 (boomark / email).