Consumer

Foreclosure: Process Servers Deliver The Bad News

As some of you know, getting the news that you're losing your home is heartbreaking, but, what about delivering that news? CBS4's David Sutta takes you behind the scenes, with a look at how it all starts--how you find out the bank is taking your home.

As you head home from work, and the sun sinks over south Florida, the bad news is being delivered.

"This is the fun part when it's gated,"  says one man, as he approaches a home that is being foreclosed.

"Maria Gonzalez?" "Si" "I have some court papers for you. Their foreclosure papers."

Seth Gissen and Sean Zawyer deliver the bad news six days a week to people being foreclosed on.

"I have some court papers. They're foreclosure papers for this particular unit," you hear them say.

They are process servers--middle men hunting down homeowners and renters on behalf of banks - to let them know they are losing their homes.

"We're hiring additional people and we ran out of space on the sixth floor, so we're pretty much utilizing the space," said Sean Zawyer.

Piles of foreclosures line the office. Zawyer can barely keep pace, despite dedicating an entire team of new hires.

In 2006 South Florida court houses averaged 72 foreclosures a day. Now it's four times that: 310 foreclosures filed everyday.

A majority of the doors Zawyer knocks on are vacant, or even worse, rented.

"Meaning the main defendants we are actually trying to locate either just left the property or renting it, probably collecting rent and not paying their mortgage," said Zawyer.

But what is alarming is where these foreclosures are happening; most are not in marble floor high rises.

"The majority are those are probably if I had to put a dollar value on it in the $150,000 to $400,000 dollar range, not those in the $600,000, $700,000, $800.000, a million plus," said Zawyer. "While there are those, I would say the majority are not."

It has basically become a problem for the working class.

"There's nothing we can do," said Tayna Ruiz. "There's no money and there is no one to help."

Many are like Ruiz, whose family missed a payment. Then they watched it snowball into a real mess.

"I call last week and it was $8,000 dollars. I call on Monday and it was $10,200 dollars," said Ruiz. "So every time you call, the fees go up because they have an attorney. They charge you attorney fees and late fees. It's like a $1,000 everyday."

And there are so many in the same situation as her—expecting a visit from Zawyer any day.