Bill to streamline foreclosures moves one step closer to Florida law

Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post

For the first time since the real estate crash crippled Florida’s economy and battered struggling homeowners, a bill to hasten foreclosures through the courts is headed to the full House and Senate.

A narrow 6-4 vote Monday in a specially scheduled meeting of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee was the final hurdle for the proposal (SB 1890) to be heard by both chambers. The plan aims to reduce the amount of time a bank can pursue a homeowner for unpaid mortgage debt, while speeding foreclosures on abandoned homes and in cases where homeowners have no legitimate defenses.

Bill opponents fear borrowers will get caught up in a quickie foreclosure wheel without time to question bank documents, and argue that not only are portions of the plan unconstitutional, but that the overall proposal is unnecessary.

“Most of this bill is just totally useless,” said Sarasota-based attorney Henry Trawick, an expert on Florida’s judicial rules and author of Trawick’s Florida Practice and Procedure. “The courts already have the ability to do virtually everything they want to do here.”

Trawick blames overwhelmed bank attorneys for the delay in processing foreclosure cases. He said if the bill passes it will face a constitutional challenge on a provision that attempts to define abandoned homes so that a faster foreclosure can occur.

“Florida courts have held for many years that a person’s absence from his home does not constitute abandonment of it,” Trawick said.

House sponsor Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and Senate sponsor Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, amended the bill Monday to remove a portion that restricted damages from a fraudulent foreclosure to a monetary award. Homeowner advocates opposed the language because it barred homeowners from reclaiming their property.

Another homeowner protection the sponsors tout is the reduction from five years to one year that banks would have to file for a deficiency judgment against a homeowner. A deficiency judgment is basically the amount of leftover debt owed after the bank recoups money from a sale.

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