Court to hear arguments on delaying Philadelphia sheriff sales

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas will hear arguments Monday on whether to delay until June some 1,600 residential foreclosure sales scheduled for next month.

The Philadelphia Unemployment Project filed a motion Thursday aimed at allowing financially strapped homeowners to apply for a federally funded mortgage assistance program that may allow them to keep their houses.

Sales of approximately 770 commercial properties and vacant residential properties would go ahead, according to the motion.

The proposal has the support of one attorney representing a commercial client, Francis M. Correll Jr., who is working for a lender trying to collect $5.5 million from the developer of a stalled condo building in Germantown.

The 32-unit building was to be sold at a sheriff's sale on Feb. 1, but the action was postponed because of managerial problems in the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office.

"There is no basis for further postponing commercial sales," Correll said Friday.

Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe ordered all foreclosures halted on Jan. 20.

A spokesman for Dembe, Frank Keel, wrote in an e-mail "the one certainty is that there will NOT be a blanket stay of all foreclosures on April 5."

When Dembe ordered the moratorium, it appeared the federal program was on the verge of accepting applications.

Congress has allocated $1 billion to HUD to provide forgivable bridge loans of up to $50,000 to distressed borrowers, including about $106 million for Pennsylvania.

But regulations allowing implementation of the program have not yet been made final, so no homeowner has received any money, the motion says. It asks for the sales to be postponed until June 7.