Bankers Want To Strip Away Florida Homeowners’ Rights to Judicial Foreclosures Claiming Homeowners Caused Foreclosure Mess

James Thorner, St. Petersburg Times

If bankers get their way, Floridians facing foreclosure could be kicked out of their homes in as little as three months.

The Florida Bankers Association, the 400-member-strong lenders’ lobby, has presented state legislators with a bill to upend decades of Florida law and establish “non-judicial” foreclosures in Florida by July 1.

What’s a non-judicial foreclosure? Banks would accelerate foreclosures against defaulting homeowners by bypassing the courts. Judges would no longer rule on foreclosure cases.

Some states — 37 in fact — already grant that fast-track foreclosure authority, including California, Georgia, Alabama and Texas. But Florida, with its plethora of vacation and retiree homes, has always been big on homeowner rights.

If you’re a financially strapped Florida homeowner — 62,719 Tampa Bay properties got foreclosure notices last year — the 53-page bill contains worrisome signs:

• Non-judicial foreclosures must conclude in no less than three months and no more than a year. Most Florida foreclosures take a year to 18 months to work through the courts these days, longer if a lawyer fights a successful rear guard action. So in 90 days banks can theoretically auction the home out from under you.

• The Florida Supreme Court’s newly endorsed mandatory mediation for lenders and homeowners would effectively go bye-bye. The bill provides only for informal meetings between creditors and debtors.

• Even after homeowners are evicted, banks can still pursue them for unpaid mortgage debt. But banks will waive that right if homeowners avoid trashing or stripping the house before the new owner takes over. (Read more)

Home equity practices draw Florida Senate ire

From the Real Deal

New Florida Senate president Mike Haridopolos wants banks to answer to allegations that they squeezed customers and fraudulently reduced home equity lines of credit in order to boost profits after receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in federal bailout money. Haridopolos, a Republican who represents Merritt Island, on the Space Coast, said the issue needs to be investigated, and if it proves to be true, is outrageous. He said the same banks that were bailed out with taxpayers’ money have also victimized homeowners. While federal regulations permit account suspensions for home equity lines of credit when financial circumstances adversely change or when properties suffer a substantial decline in their property, many Florida homeowners have claimed banks are use false pretenses as excuses to call in home loans, he said. TRD

Miami judge grants reverse foreclosure

Paul Brinkman, South Florida Business Journal

Attorneys for the Keys Gate Homeowners Association in Homestead have won a legal victory in a case that could set a precedent for banks that drag their feet in taking title to homes facing foreclosure.

The Association Law Group of Miami won the case on behalf of the Keys Gate HOA using what it calls a reverse foreclosure, designed to speed up the process of awarding a property to a bank, thus making the bank liable for fees and maintenance, even if the property is vacant.

Based on the reverse foreclosure procedure, Miami Dade Circuit Judge Jerald Bagley awarded title of a home in the Keys Gate development to HSBC Bank on Jan. 12.

The home had fallen into foreclosure in 2007. Since then, the home remained in limbo, owned and maintained by the association, (Read more)

2nd conviction for mortgage fraud gets Orlando man 22 years in federal prison

By Henry Pierson Curtis, Orlando Sentinel

Convicted once before in New York of mortgage fraud, Garry Martin moved to Orlando to bilk homeowners and banks out of more than $5 million in recent years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway sent Martin, 36, to federal prison until 2032 and ordered the real estate broker to pay more than $1 million to his victims, U.S. Attorney’s spokesman Steve Cole said.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Anne C. Conway sent Martin, 36, to federal prison until 2032 and ordered the real estate broker to pay more than $1 million to his victims, U.S. Attorney’s spokesman Steve Cole said.

Martin had been convicted in 2006 for similar crimes and prohibited from dealing in real estate. But he obtained a real estate sales agent license and a real estate broker’s license upon moving to Central Florida. He created Antigua Housing and Management Inc., Antigua Abstract LLC and several other companies on South Semoran Boulevard. (Read more)

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