Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyers Blog

The simple, straight to the point answer is YES! You should be worried about a deficiency judgment if you are currently in foreclosure or in default on your mortgage. Being in foreclosure or default has a high risk of you losing your home, but it also has a high risk of a judgment being entered against you.

This is a Deficiency Judgment--when a real estate property is foreclosed upon in Florida, the property is sold at a foreclosure sale. If the property owner owed $200,000 on her mortgage when she was foreclosed upon, and the property is only sold for $100,000 at the foreclosure sale, then the lender/bank can obtain a deficiency judgment for $100,000. A court order is entered stating the property owner owes the lender/bank $100,000. However, getting the deficiency judgment and actually collecting on it are two different beasts.

The lender/bank must obtain the deficiency judgment within 5 years of the mortgage going into default or of demanding payment. Also, a trial court has discretion whether or not to grant a deficiency judgment, and its decision must be based on established equitable principles, taking into account the specific facts of the case, and the decision is always subject to review by an appeal. Carlson v. Becker, 45 So.2d 116 (Fla.1950). The court must take into account the reasonable and fair market value of the property, and the reasonableness of the amount of the foreclosure sale. Savers Federal Savings & Loan Association v. Sandcastle Beach Joint Venture, 498 So.2d 519 (Fla. 1st SCA 1986). "The granting of a deficiency judgment is the rule rather than the exception." Flagship State Bank of Jacksonville v. Drew Equipment Co., 392 So.2d 609 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981).

If you are facing foreclosure, there may be steps you can take to ensure you do not get stuck with a deficiency judgment. Contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Bankruptcy Lawyer today for a free case review to evaluate your defense options.

If you are facing Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, you may be unsure of what options you may have. Talking to an attorney can help wade through all the potential options and help you make an informed decision. Here are 5 foreclosure options and potential ways a talking to a Foreclosure Defense Attorney can help you.

1. Extensions and Forgiveness: A Foreclosure Defense Attorney may be able to help you gain additional time in your home and/or obtain forgiveness on some of your past due payments, late fees, and charges.
2. Lower your Monthly Payments and Interest Rate: A Foreclosure Defense Attorney may be able to help you negotiate a new, lower interest rate, which will lower your monthly payment.
3. Forbearance: A Foreclosure Defense Attorney may be able to help you negotiate a period of lower monthly payments; after which you would resume your normal monthly mortgage payment.
4. Short Sale: A Foreclosure Defense Attorney may be able to help you negotiate a Short Sale. A Short Sale is where you and the bank agree to sell the property for an amount less than what you owe on the property. The lender then agrees to release you from the loan and accept a lower amount than what they are owed. The amount not repaid is called a deficiency. In some, but not all cases, the lender will agree to not hold the borrower responsible for the deficiency.
5. Deed-in-Lieu of Foreclosure: A Foreclosure Defense Attorney may be able to help you negotiate a Deed-in-Lieu. A Deed-in-Lieu is where the borrower conveys the property to the lender in order to satisfy the loan that is in default and avoid foreclosure. There are several advantages to both the borrower and lender. One advantage to the borrower is they are immediately released from most or all personal indebtedness associated with the loan in default. A Deed-in-Lieu also hurts your credit less than a foreclosure. The benefits to the lender include less time and cost spent repossessing the property, and a lower risk of vandalism to the property by the borrower.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a JFlorida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today for a complimentary case review to see if any of these options could be available to you.

Even though homeowners facing foreclosure in Florida have had to fight the expedited procedures of rocket docket and giant foreclosure mills trying to push thousands of foreclosures through the courts at a rapid pace, along with foreclosure processing companies creating and "robo-signing" fraudulent foreclosure documents, there are still over 125,000 properties in some stage of the foreclosure process in Florida.

In the first quarter of 2011, 1 in every 152 housing units in Florida were in foreclosure, which constitutes the lowest level the state has seen in the last four years. The drop in foreclosure numbers has done little to alleviate the foreclosure backlog in the courts. Some foreclosure observers point to the demise of the Law Offices of David J. Stern and its subsequent dumping of 100,000 active foreclosure cases into the Florida foreclosure system.

While Florida Foreclosure lawsuits appear to be on the decline, many experts are saying this may be the calm before another storm. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit now in the near future, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure defense options may be available to you.

Bank of America has reportedly sold its servicing rights to 400,000 of its home loans to Fannie Mae for a $500 million, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. The principal balance remaining on the loans is reported at $73 billion. The move comes shortly after Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan indicated during a CNBC interview that the sale was pending. The deal begins with the first batch of 100,000 loans to be transferred starting in September.

While Fannie Mae does not usually provide loan servicing functions, they do facilitate transfers of mortgage pools between servicers. A Bank of America spokesperson indicated that the bank would be selling additional mortgage servicing rights over the next year, so look for future additional news in this regard.

Hopefully by handing their reins off to different servicers, the mortgages involved in this sale will get the attention necessary to move along more smoothly. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit from Bank of America, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer today for a complimentary consultation to determine what foreclosure alternatives may be available in your case.

What is going on in with all of the Foreclosure craziness? This has been the question for millions of homeowners dealing with the potential loss of a home right now. People have heard the horror stories of predatory lending, and the other stories of unqualified homeowners working with brokers to deceive lenders to get financed. But many mortgages fall somewhere in between, leaving big question marks in place of answers the housing market desperately needs.

As a greater number of questions are pouring in, however, searching for answers has become a daunting task. MIllions of homeowners are in a struggle to hold onto their loans while batting off multiple lenders. The problem is many of the original brokers and lending companies have since gone out of business or been the subject of criminal charges stemming from their faulty practices. Often times, the loans in question have been securitized into a mortgage-backed trust. The issue underlying this confusion is that no one knows whom the owner of the note and mortgage actually is. This is largely because of one four-letter acronym, MERS.

MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System), a service created to track mortgage transfers, was created in 1994. MERS replaced the old system of "walking" every important mortgage document to the County Clerk's office. With this shortcut in place, lenders were able to save millions of dollars in local recording fees and started transferring mortgages at a pace that, we would later learn, was far too much to handle. So grueling, in fact, MERS failed to properly follow state and local laws in documenting these transfers. Now when it comes time to foreclose instead of documenting each transfer, MERS allegedly signs the mortgage from the original lender to the most recent owner.Many courts are now deciding whether MERS has actual standing to foreclose.

There are things you can do to be prepared for or stave off a potential foreclosure. One of the most important is to communicate with your lender. If you are facing the prospect of foreclosure, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to determine what foreclosure defenses may be available in your specific case.

As a requirement before lenders with allow you to short sale your home, most lenders will require homeowners to sign contracts agreeing to the bank's stipulations in selling the home. Many times these documents will include boilerplate language that can be harmful to a borrower's position. In some cases, as a condition of short sale, borrowers are asked to sign a promissory note agreeing to pay the balance of the deficiency amount after the sale before the house can even be sold. As a result lenders will be contractually able to obtain a deficiency judgment when short sales did not cover the entire cost of the mortgage.

Never sign a promissory note for a lender without knowing the legal consequences that document will have on your short sale. If you are considering the foreclosure alternatives such as short selling your property contact a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer today to determine what foreclosure alternatives may be available to you and what alternative may be the best in your situation.

When faced with a foreclosure in Florida, you should be aware of the different alternatives that are available before you lose your home. Due to the complex nature of foreclosure proceedings, it is advisable to first contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer to discuss which option is right for you. Below are several alternatives to foreclosure that can be discussed with your attorney:

• Forbearance-If you have recently experienced an involuntary interruption of income or been burdened with extraordinary expenses, a lender may be able to adjust your repayment plan based on the status of your current financial situation.

• Modification of the Mortgage-A lender may allow you to refinance your debt and extend your mortgage loan, which could reduce monthly payments to an affordable level.

• Short Sale-Once in default, you can sell your property and pay off your mortgage loan to avoid foreclosure and damage to your credit.

• Deed-in-lieu of Foreclosure-As a last resort, you may be able to "give back" your property to the lender. Although this will likely not save your home, it may help your chances of receiving another mortgage loan in the future.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of foreclosure alternatives and the availability of the above alternatives will vary on a case by case basis. To discuss these options and other available foreclosure alternative options, contact a or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today.

According to the latest statistics from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), the mortgage delinquency rate on single-family homes fell to its lowest rate since the fourth quarter of 2008, falling to 8.22% for the fourth quarter 2010. The MBA's chief economist, Jay Brinkmann, said the fourth quarter stats represent "significant across-the-board" decreases in delinquent mortgages in the U.S. Mortgages one payment behind have fallen to late 2007 levels and loans three payments behind have dropped to the lowest levels of 2010.

The MBA delinquency statistics do not include the mortgages that have already received a foreclosure filing but Brinkman noted that "every state but two (North Dakota and Arkansas) saw a drop in the 90-lus day delinquency rate and the two increases were negligible." The number of loans in foreclosure or are at least one payment past due was 13.56%, a significant decline from the third quarter 2010 numbers.

Brinkman stated that the improvement in the delinquency rate should be attributed to the improvement in individual earnings due to the increase in private sector job growth and that "absent a significant economic reversal, the delinquency picture should continue to improve during 2011. If you are already facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit or are delinquent on you mortgage loan, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to see what foreclosure alternative options may be available to you.

The Tampa Florida Tribune has posted an interesting article about the actual effects of the early stages of the statewide, mandatory foreclosure mediation program. According to statistics compiled by the Tribune, between March and June 2010 there were 13,417 cases referred to mediation statewide. Of those cases only 1%, 768 total, resulted in an agreement between the borrower and the lender!

The primary question many are asking is why is the program not working as intended. While there are several factors that may be contributing to the low success rate of the program, most mediation administrators are point to the sloppiness of the lenders attorneys' and their process servers as the most obvious reasons for the breakdown of the program. The sloppy paperwork has made it difficult to locate borrowers in order to determine their desire to participate in the mediation program, which is problematic because the mediation program must contact the borrowers within 60 days of the lawsuit being filed or the case goes back to regular court proceedings.

While only 7 of the 20 Florida Circuit Courts submitted data for the Tribune report, there is enough data to determine that there are major flaws in the program. A Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer thinks that mediation is a good alternative for many struggling homeowners and hopes the trend reverses. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today.

The City of Chicago is facing the possibility that it will be forced to spend millions of dollars to deal with the accumulation of abandoned homes within the city. According to reports, there are more than 18,000 properties on the city's vacant building rolls and of those 18,000 properties, 69%, or almost 13,000, properties can be associated with a foreclosure filing between the beginning of 2006 and July 2010. Of the number of homes linked to foreclosure filings, 10,778 have some sort of foreclosure outcome, which leaves 1.896 homes that do not have an outcome.

In instances like this, a lender has filed a foreclosure lawsuit, the homeowner abandoned the property and the lender decides that it is less expensive to not complete the foreclosure process and it will charge off the mortgage on the property. When this happens the lender is not responsible for the home, which means the cost of maintaining the home or demolishing the home falls to the city.

Cities across the U.S. now face similar problems due to the numbers of people who abandon their homes when they are facing foreclosure. Along with the costs of maintaining or demolishing homes, abandoned homes have long been associated with increases in crime and blight to their areas, which in turn further drives down area home values.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today.

With news from RealtyTrac that lenders repossessed more the 1million homes in 2010 many homeowners may believe that the worst of the housing crisis is over, but industry experts say it will get even worse. Statistics from the fourth quarter of 2010 showed a significant drop in the number of foreclosure filings, most of which has been attributed to the foreclosure freeze due to the robo-signing scandal.

Many industry analysts believe that the delay from the foreclosure freeze will be over by the end of the first quarter of 2011 and clearing up those delayed foreclosures will cause 2011 to be another record year. Some figures show that 250,000 foreclosures were delay by the foreclosure freeze and this may cause a significant spike in the number of foreclosures in early 2011. This will only add to the overall number of bank-owned properties, which some industry insiders already estimate to be worth to close to $31 billion.

If you are currently facing or fear that you will be facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit in the immediate future, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to see what defenses may be available to you.

Foreclosures.com founder Alexis McGee, whose website has helped investors identify and purchased distressed properties since 1995, is now facing a foreclosure sale on her Fair Oaks, California home early next month. McGee says she began having financial trouble more than two years ago and has since had the state of California and the IRS file liens against her property for unpaid taxes.

She says she did not want to sell the home and attempted to work out a loan modification with her lender but "there's just not a lot of interest in working with high-end homes." McGee, who has offered seminars on and written books about the foreclosure process, says she is fortunate that she has knowledge about the foreclosure system and is currently working on securing a short sale agreement to prevent the home from being sold at auction.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and have tried and failed to get a mortgage modification, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure options may be available to you.

Last week, Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty signed into law an emergency act aimed at slowing the dramatic rate at which homes in the District of Columbia are being foreclosed upon. The Act, titled "Saving DC Homes From Foreclosure Emergency Act of 2010" puts into place several key processes that lenders and homeowners must complete before a foreclosing on a home and proceeding to a foreclosure sale.

One such process the Act creates is a mandatory foreclosure mediation program, much like the one created in Florida, whereby lenders and homeowners must meet before the lender can proceed with the foreclosure action. Delinquent borrowers have 30 days from the initial notification to opt into the mediation program and pay the $50 fee. If a borrower elects to not participate in the program the foreclosure and accompanying foreclosure sale can proceed but it a completed foreclosure or a foreclosure sale is completed before the entire process is complete it will be considered null and void.

With this new law Washington, DC joins an ever-growing group of states that are requiring processes where lenders and willing homeowners to explore foreclosure alternatives before a house can be foreclosed on and sold. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and wanted to find out what foreclosure alternative options may be available to save your home, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today.

The "cash for keys" program is an incentive compensation program associated with the Treasury's Making Homes Affordable Program's Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) arm, wherein struggling homeowners are given a one-time incentive payment of $3000 to assist homeowners with relocation expenses. In order to be considered for HAFA a homeowner must first be considered for a HAMP modification. Those borrowers that do meet the eligibility for a HAMP modification but are not offered a trial plan, who do not successfully complete a trial plan or who default on a HAMP modification are usually eligible for entry into the HAFA program.

HAFA typically utilizes either a deed-in-lieu or a short sale in order to help struggling homeowners get out of homes that they can no longer afford. In most instances lenders require borrowers to list their homes in a short sale, for a period not to exceed 12 months, before the lender will consider granting a deed-in-lieu request. While this may not be a very rapid process for homeowners, lenders are prohibited from conducting a foreclosure sale during that time so it may be in many homeowners best interest.

If you have applied for and been denied a HAMP modification, or simply fallen out of your modification plan, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to explore your foreclosure alternative options today.

Many homeowners who use foreclosure alternatives such as short sales or mortgage modifications in order to have a portion of their mortgage debt forgiven face the question "am I going to have to pay taxes on the amount of mortgage debt forgiven." In most instances that answer is no! The Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 was enacted to help homeowners who were trying to escape toxic mortgages and the accompanying debt by not taxing the amounts forgiven as taxable income.

Homeowners who intend to claim the exemption must fill out Form 982 and attach it to their individual tax return in order to be eligible for the relief. Types of eligible debt are debts forgiven in connection with a foreclosure, debt forgiven due to a short sale as well as debt forgiven through a mortgage restructuring such as a HAMP modification. The Act was originally intended to only affect mortgage debt forgiven in 2007, 2008 and 2009 but was recently extended to include all forgiven mortgage debt through 2012!

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and want to explore foreclosure alternatives that may reduce your mortgage debt and take advantage of the extension of the Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today.