Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyers Blog

On Monday, December 19th, Charles Canady, the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court signed administrative order AOSC11-44 which put an end to the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation (RMFM) program. The RMFM program was established in late 2009 and referred all mortgage foreclosure actions on residential homestead properties to a court supervised mediation process with the goal of resolving mortgage foreclosures before judicial disposition of foreclosure cases

The Court does not give specific reasons for ending the RMFM program but states in administrative order AOSC11-44 "the Court has reviewed the reports on on the program and determined it cannot justify continuation of the program." As of the date of the Order, December 19, 2011, "no new cases may be referred to mediation pursuant to the statewide managed mediation program."

Those cases that are already referred to the RMFM program or are pending in a mediation program as of the date of the order will remain in the program and will continue until the mediation process is completed. Immediately ending the RMFM program seems to be the easy way out for the courts. Instead of tweaking the program to make it more effective and meet its goal of helping to dispose of cases that benefits both banks and struggling homeowners the Court has just decided to end the program entirely.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to determine what foreclosure defense options may be available to you.

To read the full text of Florida Supreme Court Administrative Order AOSC11-44 click here.

Chief Justice Charles Canady requested, and Governor Rick Scott has approved a $45.6 million loan to help the Florida Court system continue to operate through March 2012. This is in addition to the already granted $54 million loan to the courts to begin the 2011-2012 fiscal year. The initial loan was granted after realizing the decline in foreclosure filings would be continuing, but with the understanding the decrease would soon come to an end and the loan would be repaid. The courts have not exceeded their budgets. Instead, there has been a shortfall in revenue due to the increase in foreclosure filings.

Currently, the Revenue Stabilization Workgroup is working towards returning the majority of the court system's funding to the general revenue source. The additional loan is just supposed to sustain the court system until this can be accomplished. Governor Rick Scott commented, "[t]he transfers should only be made as needed to cover cash deficiencies, and the loan must be repaid as soon as practical, but no later than June 30, 2012."

Contact a Florida Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today if you are facing foreclosure for a complimentary case review and to begin planning your recovery.

The panel appointed to study the viability and effectiveness of the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation program has recommended that the Florida Supreme Court end the program, rather than tweak or make wholesale changes to the program. The panel, consisting of five judges and a court administrator, cited homeowner mistrust and lender resistance as two of the major reasons the program has been ineffective. Only 3/6% of of cases referred to mediation from March 2010 and ending March 2011 settled during mediation.

Proponents of the program say that statistic is skewed in that it doesn't take into account settlements reached after mediation. In addition, program advocates state lenders have intentionally sabotaged the program and did not follow the spirit of mediation. Many wanted the program to continue but with some changes. Instead of cases being automatically referred to the RMFM program, the panel recommended each of the state's 20 circuit courts make mediation decisions on a case-by-case basis or allow them to join a new program yet to be created. The recommendations of the panel have been forwarded to the Florida Supreme Court but there is no timetable for the end of the program or the creation of another.

To date, there are roughly 350,000 foreclosures backlogged in Florida's court system. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to determine what foreclosure alternatives may be available to you.

In September, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a review of the effectiveness of the mandatory Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program (commonly referred to as the "RMFM Program"). The program has not fully accomplished its goal of helping homeowners find alternatives to foreclosure and decreasing the foreclosure caseload in Florida courts. The Florida Supreme Court ordered the program in December 2009.

The Supreme Court Administrative Order signed on Monday, September 26, 2011 appointed five judges and one court administrator to evaluate the success of the program and recommend whether the program should be continued, changed, or eliminated altogether.

Judge Burton Conner of the 4th District Court of Appeal and who served on the Task Force that recommended program back in 2009, was one of the five judges chosen to re-evaluate the program. According to Judge Conner, just like anything new, the program has experienced growing pains, but he is hopeful banks will progressively see the advantage of going to mediation. "There has been institutional resistance because it is such a new tool. With anything new it takes a while to figure out how it works and how you can benefit." The committee has until October 21, 2011 to submit its recommendation of the program to the Florida Supreme Court.

Throughout Florida, only 3.6% of all cases referred to the mediation program, over the course of 1 year, ended with a written agreement. Of the homeowners who actually participated in the program, there was a 25% success rate statewide. Alternatives to foreclosure contained in written agreements included loan modifications, deed-in-lieus, and short sales.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to determine what foreclosure defenses and options may be available to you.

40% of foreclosure cases backlogged in the Florida Court System has been cut over the last year. A combination of increased efforts by the courts and cases being dropped or dismissed by banks are responsible for much of the relief. The Office of the State Courts Administrator shows that 201,524 foreclosures were disposed of last year (96,630 disposed of by summary and final judgments, 104,126 were dismissed). However, if a foreclosure case was disposed of through a dismissal, it can most likely be refilled. The question is will they be re-filed and when?

Foreclosure cases can be voluntarily dismissed by banks for a number of reasons but most are dismissed due to paperwork irregularities. Numerous news stories have emerged revealing that bank employees signed foreclosure paperwork without first personally verifying information contained in the documents (commonly referred to as "robosigning"). Other paperwork irregularities have included issues regarding proper notarization, erroneous or forged assignments, and missing or erroneously prepared mortgage documents.

The majority of foreclosure actions that were voluntarily dismissed by banks throughout the last year for one or more paperwork issue, will most likely be filed again. But, foreclosure filings have remained at a decreased rate as banks have increasingly been using other means rather than foreclosure to deal with struggling homeowner, including permitting more homeowners to short sale their property, approving more loan modifications, and allowing homeowners to stay in properties until after the final foreclosure sale.

At the end of the 2010-2011 fiscal court year, 260,815 of foreclosure cases that were pending at the beginning of the year (460,000) remained. 117,000 new cases were filed within the year (which is lower than what was expected). As of June 30, 2011, the number of foreclosure cases pending in the court system is 378,000.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit or have had your Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit voluntarily dismissed by your bank, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer today to review your case in order to determine what foreclosure defense options may be available to you.

In the year 2073, courts in New York will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief: that's the year they will finally be rid of all of the foreclosure cases currently on their dockets. That is, at their current pace, it will take another 62 years for lenders to finally be rid of their current foreclosure cases!! This is the longest waiting period in the country.

Other states facing long waiting periods are New Jersey, which will take 49 years, and Florida, Massachusetts, and Illinois, all of which would take nearly a decade. This is in contrast to states that don't use their courts for foreclosure proceedings. For example, California has a 3-year waiting list, while Nevada and Colorado have 2-year lists.

Some legal authorities in Florida have suggested that banks aren't even doing anything to clear their cases. One South Florida attorney currently has 1,275 foreclosure clients; last year he had only 350. All but 75 of his current cases remain pending. J. Thomas McGrady, Sixth Circuit Chief Judge, says banks are largely to blame for the backlog. "We're here to do what we're asked ... [But] the banks aren't asking."

Banks claim the delay is due to the legal hoops and regulations in the law they have to jump through. However, this does not excuse banks from using illegal methods such as "robo-signers" to mass-produce documents. We've written before about the robo-signing scandal and how it does not seem to be completely over. If you are facing foreclosure, contact a Florida Foreclosure Defense Attorney to discuss the best legal and financial options which may be available for you.

This may be a mere coincidence or it may be intentional, there is no way to know for certain but it is a little fishy...

Today a client brought in this piece of paper left by the company trying to serve his foreclosure case when he was not home.

Front of Service.pdf (Pay close attention to the last line)...

Now look at what important information the client is supposed to "disregard" on the back

Back of Service.pdf

Now what if homeowners listened to everything their mortgage companies said!

At its current pace, it will take Florida another decade before all of the foreclosures currently filed will be taken care of. Surprisingly, Florida is doing better than other states: it will take another 62 years in New York and 49 in New Jersey, for example.

All across the nation, millions foreclosures are getting backlogged. Most states, in fact, have established systems by which foreclosures do not go through the courts; however, even those states have backlogs of two to three years. The Florida Legislature has just decided to end the dedicated foreclosure courts for 2011. Indeed, the numbers are staggering: there are about two million homes already in foreclosure, with another two million in the red but not yet officially in foreclosure. Banks and courts are simply overwhelmed.

Banks have acknowledged the delay, which has been compounded by changing state laws (such as the requirement for mediation) and fraud on the part of banks (such as the revelation last year that many banks were filing false or inaccurate documents with the courts). A spokesman for Bank of America, for example, said, "Any suggestion that we have a strategy to delay foreclosures is baseless."

Although it may take some time before the banks may foreclose on you, banks are still able to take homes quickly through foreclosure for those homeowners not represented by attorney's. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today.

Florida is one of about 25 states with a foreclosure mediation program, which was established by the Florida Supreme Court in 2009 in an attempt to both help homeowners and clear court caseloads. However, a recent study suggests the mediation program is not as successful as had been hoped.

For example, in Miami-Dade County, only 2,396 of the 14,372 foreclosures that were recommended to foreclosure actually occurred. This is largely due to the fact that homeowners are very difficult to reach and often don't respond to requests for mediation -- Statewide, only 41% of homeowners were successfully contacted. This is just one of the many reasons you should not ignore attempts by your lender to contact you.

It's important to remember that the program is young and still improving. Some of the problems associated with the program can be remedied by hiring an attorney. If your lender has requested mediation but you failed to respond, an attorney may be able to reinstate you into the program. It is important to have an attorney representing your rights at mediation. If you are facing the prospect of foreclosure and believe mediation may be option for you, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today to discuss your options.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a legislative proposal that would authorize bankruptcy courts to order mediation between homeowners and lenders before proceeding with the foreclosure process. The potential legislation, titled the Limiting Investor and Homeowner Loss in Foreclosure Act, passed by a slim 10-8 margin and would give the federal bankruptcy judges the ability to order the homeowners and their creditors to mediation in an effort to open the lines of communication between the two sides in hopes that the sides will survey options other than foreclosure.

The legislation would not give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify mortgages of write-down or "cram-down" mortgage principle like other foreclosure prevention measures that have failed gain approval over the last few years. The bill is modeled after a similar law being used in Rhode Island. The Rhode Island bill does not require settlement, just "good faith negotiation". To date, the law has been credited with saving at least 120 homes from foreclosure.

It seems as though the members of the House and Senate are now hearing the cries of struggling homeowners and are beginning to do something about it. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure alternative options may be available to you.

Recent housing numbers show that Florida has the highest percentage of unoccupied homes with nearly 20% of homes in the state being vacant!! The Census Bureau data uncovered that 1.6 million homes, or 18%, are sitting vacant. That percentage accounts for a 63% drop in occupancy rate the last 10 years. The mortgage bubble and the growing population made Florida one of the nations hottest real estate markets, but the amount of unoccupied homes threatens to make Florida one of the most depressed markets for decades.

The hardest hit county in Florida has consistently been Collier County, where 32% of home sitting empty. Real estate industry insiders predict that home prices in these areas will takes decades to recover to their pre-bust levels, with Naples (Collier County) not expected to recover until the late 2030's. Collier is followed by Lee County (30%) and Sarasota County (23%) as counties with an over 20% vacancy rate. The other usual suspects the nations highest foreclosure rates also had high vacancy rates: Arizona (16%), Nevada (14%), California (8%).

It seems as though each day brings new news about the depths of the foreclosure crisis, especially here in Florida. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today to see what foreclosure defenses may be available to you and possibly keep you in your home.

When the Florida Supreme Court set forth the requirements for homeowners eligible for the Residential Mandatory Foreclosure Mediation program, the intent was to give all homeowners facing foreclosure on their residential homestead the opportunity to achieve directly negotiate with their lender in an effort to save their home. The Court put the burden directly on the lenders and their attorney's to identify whether or not the property they were seeking foreclosure on was a homestead property by simply looking at the tax records, stating that "a homestead residence mean a residential property for which a homestead real estate tax exemption was granted...prior to the filing of the suit to foreclose the mortgage."

Effectively, the Court is saying that if a property does not have the homestead exemption that they are not eligible for the mediation program. A Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer has encountered this problem relatively frequently but for those homeowners without legal representation it may go unnoticed. If the property being foreclosed on is, in fact, your homestead, you cannot be excluded from the mediation program solely because you fail to take advantage of a tax benefit! All that must be done for the court, is show that your home is your homestead, which can be done through various means.

If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and have been excluded from the mediation program, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Lawyer today. It may not be to late to utilize what may be a effective foreclosure alternative as a means of saving your home.

The Miami Herald is reporting that many South Florida facing foreclosure are having to overcome yet another hurdle in the fight to save their homes, their lenders are not providing the necessary, required paperwork to begin the mediation process. When the Florida Supreme Court created the Residential Mandatory Foreclosure Mediation program in 2010, it set forth requirements that each side must complete before a mediation can take place. Lenders must provide four essential pieces of information to the mediation program manager before a mediation can take place: (1) documentary evidence the plaintiff is the owner and holder in due course of the note and mortgage sued upon, (2) a history showing the application of all payments nu the borrower during the life of the loan, (3) a statement on the plaintiff's position on the net present value of the mortgage loan, and (4) the most current appraisal of the property available to the plaintiff.

According to the Herald, many of the scheduled mediation sessions in Broward and Palm Beach counties are having to be cancelled because lenders can't provide even this most basic of paperwork. This is a troubling trend not only because it leaves struggling homeowners in limbo but also because when borrowers do not comply with foreclosure rules they are kicked out of the program but when lenders don't comply nothing is really done. An attorney who represents Florida "foreclosure mill" Shaprio and Fishman says that the failure to provide required paperwork is not purposefully done to delay mediation, it happens because lenders are overwhelmed and "paperwork is not easy to find and not always clean."

A December release from the Florida Supreme Court showed that only about 6 percent of cases referred to mediation are actually resulting in settlements between homeowners and their lenders. A Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer hopes that the Florida Supreme Court doing what other state supreme courts are doing, making the necessary changes to get mediation programs working as intended in order to help besieged homeowners. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today.

The Nevada Supreme Court has recently revised the rules that created and governed the troubled state's foreclosure mediation program. The new rules, which go into effect March 1, 2011, are intended "to clarify and streamline the processes" of the program in order to help more borrowers facing foreclosure. One of the rules created with regard to the foreclosure mediation program is the rule giving judges the ability to modify mortgages if the lenders do not comply with mediation program guidelines.

Among the other foreclosure mediation rule changes are: an expansion of time, from 15 to 30 days, for a party to file a petition for judicial review after receiving a mediators statement after mediation, allowing homeowners to send someone to represent them during the mediation process as long as they are Nevada attorney's or qualified under Nevada law, the creation of an advisory committee to make recommendations to the Nevada Supreme Court regarding the mediation program, as well as a clarification of many of the foreclosure mediation forms used by the program.

Nevada Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael L. Douglas stated that periodic rule changes "have always been anticipated" and that the "intent is to ensure that the program works for those who need and use it-both homeowners and lenders." Lets hope the Florida Supreme Court takes the same view when dealing with the issues that have plagued the Florida Mediation Program. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit and are considering or pursuing mediation as a foreclosure alternative, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today.

During his annual State of the Judiciary address, New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced a sweeping change designed to help the thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure in the state; every homeowner facing foreclosure will get an attorney to represent them, regardless of their ability to pay. Currently, only about half of those homeowners facing foreclosure are actually represented by a lawyer, and this move by the State of New York represents a huge step forward in the foreclosure fight.

For those homeowners who cannot afford to pay an attorney, they will be represented by local legal aid organizations. Judge Lippman has requested an additional $100 million from the state legislature to fund what will be a sharp increase in demand fore pro-bono legal services. New York, like Florida, is one of the 23 judicial foreclosure states and most New York judges believe that getting more attorney's involved will help speed the backlog of 80,000 active foreclosure cases currently active in the New York court system.

The new initiative will being in just two test counties with the mandate to be state-wide by the end of the year. If you are facing a Florida Foreclosure Lawsuit, contact a Jacksonville Foreclosure Defense Lawyer or a Florida Foreclosure Defense Lawyer today for a complimentary foreclosure defense consultation.