Making news around the world: An Ohio man has bulldozed his home rather than let a bank foreclose on it.

From WLWT Cincinatti:

Terry Hoskins said he’s been in a struggle with RiverHills Bank over his Clermont County home for nearly a decade, a struggle that was coming to an end as the bank began foreclosure proceedings on his $350,000 home. Hoskins says he owes $160,000 on the house. He says he spent a lot of money on attorneys and finally had enough. About two weeks ago he bulldozed the home 25 miles southeast of Cincinnati. “When I see I owe $160,000 on a home valued at $350,000, and someone decides they want to take it – no, I wasn’t going to stand for that, so I took it down,” Hoskins said.

Photo WLWT

Hoskins said the IRS placed liens on his carpet store and commercial property on state Route 125 after his brother, a one-time business partner, sued him. The bank claimed his home as collateral, Hoskins said, and went after both his residential and commercial properties. “The average homeowner that can’t afford an attorney or can fight as long as we have, they don’t stand a chance,” he said.

Hoskins said he’d gotten a $170,000 offer from someone to pay off the house, but the bank refused, saying they could get more from selling it in foreclosure. Hoskins told News 5′s Courtis Fuller that he issued the bank an ultimatum. “I’ll tear it down before I let you take it,” Hoskins told them.

And that’s exactly what Hoskins did.

Here’s a local TV news report on the story, from the “The Mess That Greenspan Made” blog.

Reaction from around the Web:

Yesterday, Joseph Stack sent the corporatocracy a deadly message about how fed up he was with the stranglehold corporations have on our Government, our lives, and our wallets. But Stack’s method of delivery was totally wrong; he targeted an office building with innocent people inside. People like the ones who cheered on Bush’s Glorious Oedipal Crusade on Iraq might celebrate the killing of innocent people, but the rest of us are appalled by it.

Terry Hoskins, however….. this guy knows how to get a point across, and I’m proud to say he’s right here in Ohio.

We’ve been hearing for awhile now that the President’s attempts to get mortgages modified are failing in large part due to the intransigence of the bankers, who don’t want to talk about any possible outcome save foreclosure. This has been reported all over the country by credit counselors and homeowner advocacy organizations. Terry Hoskins ran smack-dab up against that himself when he offered a solution that should have been satisfactory to the bank.

As you can see, the bank didn’t want to hear it; they preferred to squeeze every drop of blood out of the guy. Unfortunately for them, Hoskins figured he’d bled enough. As a result of their greed, the bankers will now get just about what they deserve.

This is civil disobedience I don’t have a problem with. Nobody gets hurt. And the message “Enough is Enough” comes through loud and clear.

Good for Terry. The bankers have become predators, and their ability to profit from the ways in which they’ve conducted themselves ought to be limited. Terry Hoskins has most definitely found a way to do that.

It is a shame that it has come to this, but really…. what chance does a schmuck have these days in the corporate-owned court system?
    -REConstitution

Mr. Hoskins claims (he bulldozed his house) only after trying to work out his problems with his lender, RiverHills Bank.

I think he might have a problem. Riverhills Bank will never be confused with a TARP bank. According to their website, they are a community bank with only five branches. He says they wouldn’t talk to him and be reasonable. Maybe so. I don’t know. I do know that my Texas community banker is very reasonable. Of course, they have my money. I don’t have theirs. Maybe it would be different if that was the case. Again, I don’t know.

I do know two things. The first is that when you borrow money, it’s not unreasonable for the lender to expect you to pay it back. You sign a mortgage pledging your home as collateral for a reason. Without that pledge, you wouldn’t get the home. Mr. Hoskins was obviously fine with those terms going in because he signed the mortgage. Now that lady luck is smiling elsewhere, he decided to change the rules. If you want your bank off your back, Mr. Hoskins, all you have to do is pay them back what you borrowed from them. It works every time.

The second thing I know is that just because everyone else is acting like a criminal doesn’t give you the right to act like one as well. Like Joseph Stack who flew his plane into an Austin office building housing the IRS, Terry Hoskins wants somebody else to pay for his mistakes. Like Joseph Stack, Terry Hoskins is just plain wrong and all the self-righteous justification in the world won’t change that.

It’s time for America to man up and take responsibility for our messes while leaving the airplanes and bulldozers parked.
    -Economic Winter

Terry Hoskins does what many other homeowners would probably love to do – bulldoze the house that the bank had planned on taking back via foreclosure. His situation is different than most as he owes far less on his house than it is worth, however, due to business debts and a lawsuit, RiverHills Bank in Ohio wanted the house. Now they’ll have it.

    -The Mess That Greenspan Made

Dramatic events (like this and Joe Stack flying his plane into an IRS building) were completely unnecessary. There’s no fighting the system, you come out the loser. There’s no winning when you scam the IRS. You have to pay your taxes if you want to avoid IRS issues. Heed the warnings of these stories, file and pay your taxes on time this year.

    -IRS – Hitman

Guess he doesn’t have a plane.

    -MyHattiesburg.com forum

When you do what Mr.Hoskins has done …. you’re a “patriot” in these time’s, in my opinion. Protecting one’s property and assets is as patriotic as defending American soil, and truly an American quality. Protecting our country some may say from these new tyrannical forces who figured out how to sweep up every business and property in this land if they needed to and have complete ownership….Mr.Hoskins ….. you’re my hero Sir!!
    -Ranch Chimp Journal

Whether Terry the Bulldozer was looking to get a Facebook following out of this isn’t entirely clear. But we will give the guy credit; even if he did this to himself by putting up his personal residence for some bad business deals, he’s got pretty creative for the sake of making a point.

“I made a bad business decision. F***you IRS! Up yours, RiverHills Bank! You think I’m not serious? I will rent heavy machinery to prove my point. I will make my loved ones temporarily homeless. I will go on a local NBC affiliate to talk about it. How do you like me now?”

Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t be worse. If that attention whore Joe Stack hadn’t gone on his little flight, Terry could be enjoying Joe the Plumber-esque fame right now. Next time, Terry.

    -Going Concern

This guy hasn’t paid his bills for years. I am surprised the county didn’t take his business and home years ago. He hasn’t paid taxes for years.

Check Clermont County Auditor in Ohio site to see his delinquent taxes.

Can you really go 9 years without paying property taxes? He did. He is a real tea bagger. He doesn’t pay any taxes- he is a sponge. Now we will have to support him in jail.

    -In Your Face Radio user commenter

Wow. This is sad. This guy had an asset he claims was worth $350K and liabilities of $160K. Had the bank foreclosed, they would have sold the asset and any surplus above the note would have had to be paid to this guy. Even if they sold at a massive loss, he would still have likely received a check for $50-100K (or the IRS would). either way the net result would have been he lost his house but cleared his debts. Now he is sitting on a lot, probably worth tens of thousands, and once the bank forceloses, he will still owe the bank the difference ($140K+) and the IRS whatever he owed them and those liens will follow him forever until paid. So now teh net result is that he lost his house anyway but is still massively in debt.

    -Huffington Post user comment

There is really nothing to be said for just f***ing shit up . The housing prices are artificially high. Had that house been foreclosed on and put on the market, not only would the debt been paid, but also someone could have bought that house and had home. And the supply of homes on the market and the price of housing would have been that much better.

He borrowed the money. F*** him. Send him to jail and slap a fine for the value of the destroyed house on his ass. That way when he gets out he will spend the rest of his life paying for the house he destroyed. There is nothing funny or interesting about people who commit fraud and brazenly fuck shit up to keep from paying lawful debts.
    -Reason.com user comment

Imagine if ONE MILLION Americans did this…This man shot his credit rating forever, but what he did was GOOD FOR THE COUNTRY.

Now we only need 999,999 more.

    -Huffington Post user comment

Boy, these sure are interesting times. If by “interesting” we mean “awful.”

Posted on February 23, 2010 at 3:28 pm
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Categorised under : housing and real estate
Tagged with : foreclosures , real estate , Terry Hoskins