How does the Eviction Process work?

Foreclosure not only affects the Home Owners, it has a broad brush and hits everyone it touches. This article I found on the web, looks into the how a deputy in South Carolina has been put in the middle of this mess. The article speaks to the facts and numbers and how they have increased dramatically over the last year.

This article is written by PAGE IVEY, posted on The Ledger.com.

"LEXINGTON, S.C. - Deputy Jon Shokes knows a few things about you by the time he shows up on your doorstep.

He knows whether you or anyone who lived at your home has ever been to jail. He knows whether police have ever been called to the house.

And, with his roll of industrial-strength tape and an eviction notice in hand, Shokes also knows that you haven't made your mortgage payments.

"Like anything else I do in law enforcement, I want as much information as possible to keep myself safe," Shokes said during one recent day spent posting some of the 150 eviction notices he's served in the past 18 months.

As mortgage foreclosures increase around the country, it's left to Shokes and other law enforcement agents to complete the final steps in the wrenching process of forcing a family from a home. It's a lengthy trail that leads from notices of late payments to court hearings before being handed to someone like Shokes. When it goes smoothly, he often finds a family has moved out before he posts the final, 8 1/2-by-11-inch eviction notice on a door.

The few times it's gone badly, emotions run high.

"I guess the hardest part, and I don't run across it a whole lot, is when they have children and the children don't understand. They see the uniform, they see the car, so I kind of work a little bit harder," said Shokes, a 20-year veteran.

Shokes, the only deputy who serves foreclosure notices in Lexington County, makes three attempts to contact a homeowner before posting the eviction notice. He stops by at different times of the day and chats for a spell, mostly to make sure they understand what's about to happen.

"Most people - I'd say probably 99 percent of them - understand why they're losing the home and they don't take that out on me," he said.

He's been fortunate to have avoided "major problems," he said, but "It's still a very dangerous situation any time you're taking something from someone."

The notices effectively start a clock ticking toward a deadline for a family to vacate a home, which is usually the next time Shokes will arrive at their door.

Home to about 240,000 people in central South Carolina, Lexington County's foreclosures typically have stemmed from divorces, job losses or illnesses that leave people unable to pay mortgages, according to the stories Shokes has heard from the people he has evicted.

But the fastest growing area of mortgage foreclosures are high-priced loans made to people with problem credit - also called subprime loans. In the last three months of 2006, about one of every 14 of those adjustable rate mortgages in the state was in foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Every so often, Shokes arrives at a home to find the residents haven't prepared to leave, and eventually a bank sends a moving company to pack their things.

"I've had some that didn't want to leave," he said. "They don't believe that someone is actually going to take all their personal belongings and put them out on the street."www.theledger.com