The Money Lenders Take Another Spokane Block
A foreclosure suit on the Kaele block reveals a family that paid nearly $11,000 in interest — and still stands to lose the property to a Dutch mortgage bank.
One by one the citizens of Spokane see their property slipping from their grasp and passing into the hands of the money loaners. The latest phase of the prodigality is the foreclosure suit instituted yesterday by the Northwest & Pacific Hypotheek bank against B. Fortheringham and wife and Henry Brook and wife. The complaint alleges that the parties named executed a mortgage on lot 8, block 18, re-survey and addition to Spokane for $18,000 at 8 per cent per annum payable in gold coin. No interest has been paid since January, 1892, and the Holland bank wants possession of the property. It is admitted that the enormous sum of $10,884.40 has been paid in interest, but the bank wants the premises, the Kaele block, and interest at the rate stipulated except the amount acknowledged as having been paid. A demand for $2,000 attorney's fees and $500 costs and disbursements is also made.
“One by one the citizens of Spokane see their property slipping from their grasp and passing into the hands of the money loaners.”
The 1890s were a foreclosure decade in Washington, as speculative railroad-era mortgages came due in a deep depression. The pattern here — a family paying far more in interest than it ever borrowed, yet still facing losing the property — is the same one housing advocates point to in today's foreclosure and eviction crises.
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