Foreclosure judgments in Westchester County nearly tripled in this year”™s first quarter compared with the first quarter last year, according to Westchester County Clerk Timothy C. Idoni.
Westchester County Supreme Court judges issued 180 foreclosure judgments in the first three months of this year, up from 62 for the same period in 2013. A total of 48 judgments were recorded in the first quarter of 2012
The number of judgments this year is the highest since 2009, when 232 foreclosures were recorded in the first quarter. The county reached a “historic high” of 243 foreclosure judgments in the first quarter of 2008, Idoni said.
In addition to the judgments, the county clerk said, 686 foreclosure actions were started in state Supreme Court by mortgage lenders from January through March this year. About the same number of legal actions were started in the first quarter of 2013, he said.
Foreclosure filings by mortgage lenders and loan servicers in 2013 rose nearly 49 percent from 2012 and court judgments against defaulting property owners rose 77 percent last year, as banks began to clear a backlog of sold and resold mortgage loans from the housing market boom that preceded the Great Recession.
