From the item below:
Trott's campaign notes that the candidate has a wide array of business interests, but his financial disclosure forms leave no doubt that foreclosures are where he made his fortune. Through various interconnected concerns, Trott is involved in virtually every aspect of the foreclosure business.
His flagship operation is Trott & Trott, a 500-person law firm founded by his father that is one of the largest foreclosure specialists in the state; its clients are largely lenders, such as Bank of America and Countrywide. Trott & Trott doesn't personally evict homeowners; it handles the paperwork for banks that do. "It's what we do; it's all we've ever done," Trott said in a 2007 TV interview, of his foreclosure work.
He also owns a real estate firm that manages foreclosed properties, as well as a newspaper chain, Michigan Legal News, that banks are required to post foreclosure notices in.
Trott doesn't just benefit from foreclosures; his firm has pushed to change state law to make it easier for banks to kick people out of their homes. The Michigan Messenger, a now-defunct investigative reporting site, reported in 2009 that Trott & Trott representatives had worked with Republican legislators to rewrite foreclosure reform legislation in order to narrow the window for residents to appeal their foreclosures. The firm directed a request for comment to the Trott campaign, which said in a statement: "Trott and Trott was one of several entities that was asked for input which they gave."
In 2011, Trott's law firm sparked a local backlash when it facilitated the eviction of 101-year-old Texana Hollis, whose belongings were unceremoniously deposited in a dumpster. (Hollis' son had fallen behind on property tax payments and ignored repeated warnings from his bank.) Hollis was eventually allowed to stay in her Detroit home of 58 years after a public outcry spurred Detroit Free-Press columnist Mitch Albom to buy the property through a charity.
So notorious is the Trott brand in southeast Michigan that when activists wanted to protest evictions in 2013, they didn't set up "Hoovervilles," the Depression-era encampments inspired by the president—they created "Trottvilles."
"David's firm has made a living off of monetizing human misery here in Michigan," said Curtis Hertel Jr., a register of deeds in Ingham County, just outside the 11th District, who has challenged Trott & Trott in court. "I mean you go through all the different scandals that have happened with the banks, and the robosigning documents, and everything else—these people are on the front lines of that."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/david-trott-kerry-bentivolio-michigan
And all the while that he was making millions foreclosing on people with bad loans he was out lobbying to keep the sub-prime loan business going full tilt:
http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/10/video-gop-candidate-david-trott-endorsed-subprime-mortgages-at-the-height-of-the-subprime-meltdown.html
OCU
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