You may remember before the so called Housing Recovery back when the housing bubble burst there were folks that just couldn’t keep their heads above water. Some of these unfortunate individuals could see there was no way out and simply walked away from their homes. There were even those who saw that they were underwater on their mortgage and instead of bemoaning the fact, looked around and saw a bigger house in their neighborhood for sale and quickly secured it at an attractive rate and then walked away from their old “boat anchor” home.

You may also remember at the time there were those, not the least of which were in the mortgage loan business, that shook their heads and wagged their fingers and scolded those who handed the keys back to the bank, saying they were setting a poor example to their kids and should be more honorable in performing their financial responsibility and safeguard the community values.

In a classic “do as I say, not as I do,” it seems those high minded admonitions from the banks only went one way. It appears to be a whole different matter when the banks decide it is in their best financial interest to walk away.

Here’s how it works, or doesn’t as the case may be. The lenders issue a notice of foreclosure to the errant homeowners who figure they are “done for” and promptly move out. As the foreclosure date approaches the lender has someone go by and unofficially appraise the house and see if it worth taking back.

One might assume that if there was too much in the way of back taxes, fees or damage that rather than foreclose, the lender would release the debt and let the home owner deal with the liens and other expenses. However, in the real business world, it doesn’t quite work out that way. The banks want to have their cake and eat it at the same time, something physically impossible except, as it turns out, in the high world of banking.

“No bank just forgives the debt,” says Peter Skillern, executive director of the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina. “Part of why you see an increase in abandoned foreclosures is because it’s an accretive problem. Our research shows that homes that banks walked away from in 2008 are still sitting there.” “Accretive” refers to the gradual accumulation, in this case, of foreclosures.

There are many thousands of borrowers who would love their lenders to take back their homes but the banks are not going to do that. They use a number of delay tactics to avoid filing. As stated by James Kowalski, executive director of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, mortgage lenders are “doing it repeatedly in Florida. If you want any better proof that the banks are slowing down the process state by state, based on their own internal analysis, this is it.” He maintains the foreclosure process is controlled by the banks, not the courts, and certainly not the homeowners. This way, banks can control the amount of “other real estate owned,” or OREO, on their books by not taking title of the property.

“I have long been convinced that the current run-up in home prices is a false high,” says senior staff attorney at the Empire Justice Center Ruhi Maker, a New York nonprofit. “Once all these foreclosures are through the system, we could see another decline in prices.”

It seems there may be a price drop in our future when all these “unforclosed” homes come back on the market and after that, some time down the road, we may see a true housing recovery.