McCalla Raymer, LLC a power house law firm out of Atlanta that represents banks and investors from around the country has staked a claim in the Florida foreclosure market with the opening of an office in Orlando.  McCalla Raymer handles the full gauntlet of financial law.

Foreclosure defense attorneys better bring their “A” game with them to court because McCalla Raymer is not afraid to litigate the following types of cases:

• Defense of Wrongful Foreclosure and Eviction Actions
• Defense of Regulatory Compliance challenges (i.e., TILA, RESPA, HOEPA, FDCPA, FCRA claims)
• Title Curative Litigation and suits to clear Junk Filings from the real estate records
• Prosecuting large Mortgage Fraud cases, Mortgage Fraud Prevention, Loss Mitigation and Asset Recovery
• Commercial Foreclosure and Complex Loss Mitigation
• Receiverships
• Foreclosure Confirmations and Suits on Notes
• HOA Litigation
• Landlord/Tenant Litigation
• Adversarial Proceedings in Bankruptcy Court
• Civil Trials and Appellate Practice in State and Federal Courts in Georgia, Alabama and Florida
• Municipal and County Disputes
• Securitization, Pooling and Servicing Agreements

• Warehouse and Correspondent Lending Arrangements
• Loan Sale and Repurchase Obligations
• Repurchase Demands
• Lender Licensing & Regulatory Compliance
• Office, Retail and Multifamily Real Estate
• Sale-Leaseback Transactions
• Small Business Mergers and Acquisitions
• Asset Purchases, Sales & Due Diligence
• Certifying Titles

DS News quoted Marty Stone, McCalla Raymer’s managing partner as saying, “Florida represents a key market for McCalla Raymer, our clients have expressed the need for additional support and quality legal guidance to adequately protect their interests. We are proud to be that provider and look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnerships with clients nationwide.”

The actions and eventual downfall of David Stern and the investigations of  five other foreclosure mill law firms by the Florida Attorney General’s office has put GSEs, mortgage servicers and the Mortgage Backed Securities which own nearly 90% of the housing debt into such a weak position that these entities have had to actually cancel thousands of foreclosure complaints against homeowners costing them billions of dollars.

So its is not surprising and it was only a matter of time before mortgage servicers and mortgage lenders brought in the heavy hitters to not only defend them in foreclosure cases in Florida but to clean up the mess made by the foreclosure mills.   Some will argue that the banks brought this on themselves by attempting to do foreclosures on the cheap and that may be true.  However, the days of a foreclosure defense attorney going up against a clueless kid who just graduated from one of Florida’s many sub-par law schools is over.

Firms like McCalla Raymer are only the beginning. Major litigation firms in New York and Washington D.C. are in the process of expanding into Florida and foreclosure defense attorneys, many of whom were starving title attorneys or who thought they could make easy money doing foreclosure defense are going to be slaughtered by firms like McCalla Raymer.