Every week I receive an e-mail from the Phoenix Business Journal highlighting stories about the residential real estate market in Phoenix. Today I received a link to an article with a poll asking for comments as to whether people think it is unethical or immortal to walk away from their mortgage. Below is the question posed and the responses that were received.
I am curious to know what you think. Please respond to this post with your thoughts and comments.
Thanks!
Do you think it is immoral or unethical for homeowners to walk away from their mortgages?
Editor’s note: The weekly Business Pulse survey is an interactive feature on our website, phoenix.bizjournals.com, which measures the pulse of our business community. Here is a sampling of comments from this week’s poll.
- Of course it’s unethical. No one forced me to buy a house and sign a contract. No one guaranteed the value of my home would go up. The bank did what it promised to do (gave me the money), so I have to do what I promised to do (pay them back).
- I am having a struggle understanding why it could possibly be immoral for someone to exercise their rights under a contract to walk away.
- In this economy, the burden of the house may leave no other option. Such a case is neither immoral nor unethical.
- When one or more enter into a “contract,” pure and simple, it is unethical to voluntarily breach the terms. Just because the financial and credit industries in our country are rife with corruption does not justify a single person turning back on their word.
- Unethical? Maybe, if you could still make payments. Immoral? Of course not. The mortgage is a contract, with remedies for both parties if there is default.
- If the house is collateral on a loan, the upright thing to do is to ask the lender to renegotiate the loan.
- I think it’s wrong for someone to walk away from an obligation. However, it was also wrong for the banks and mortgage companies to approve loans for unqualified buyers, and wrong for the government to push the banks and mortgage companies to approve bad loans. So there’s plenty of blame to go around.
- I simply do not understand when it became acceptable to not read the fine print on an important legal document like a loan; sign up for something as stupid as an “interest only” mortgage with a five-year change-over just so you can purchase a home completely beyond your means; then blame someone else and walk away from your obligation.
Read more: Business Pulse: Mortgage walkaways – Phoenix Business Journal
