Foreclosures

Not even renters are safe when it comes to the recent foreclosure crisis. At the start of the recession, reports of tenants being blindsided by foreclosure notices were not unusual. The problem prompted President Obama to sign the federal “Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act” in 2009, which requires tenants receive a 90-day notice if they are being evicted due to foreclosure, and that most existing leases for renters be honored up to the end of their term.
However, experts say even with this law in place, “Individual landlords- people who own one, two, or three properties is where there lies more risk for renters.” This problem is made even worse when foreclosure is coupled with Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection for the landlord. This gives a property owner pretty much a get-out-of-jail-free card, which can impact a tenant’s lease term and agreement. The “shadow market” which are houses, which would be on the market if their owners felt they could sell the properties, leave some renters wondering if they’ll ever get back their security deposits, advanced rent payments and other out-of-pocket expenses.
To read more on this story, please visit:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/real-estate/foreclosures-renters-threatened/19686724/
If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact foreclosure defense attorney, Timothy Kingcade at (305) 285-9100. You can also find useful consumer information on the Kingcade & Garcia, P.A. website at www.miamibankruptcy.com.

As a consequence of the fallout that marked the frenzy of the subprime mortgage era, banks and mortgage servicers are finding themselves accused of fraud in trying to foreclose on properties while using falsified documentation. In a number of cases in Florida and other states where the foreclosure process must proceed through the courts, they are being charged with presenting forged documents of assignment.
Millions of loans were processed very quickly during the heyday of interest-only and other questionable loan practices, and some mortgages were sold hundreds or even thousands of times with incomplete information or documentation so that it became impossible to determine when or to whom the mortgage was sold.
Consequently, mortgage servicers have been trying to recreate loan documents by supplying phony stamps used by financial companies to simulate proof of assignments and by randomly changing the identity of a mortgage holder when it could not verify its ownership.
When consumers in Florida, Maryland and other states began challenging the foreclosures in court, the forgeries were uncovered. Banks have been undoubtedly under pressure to provide evidence of ownership of these loans in which incomplete documents were filed.
Many lenders and banks used a service from Docx, the nation’s largest lien release processor and a subsidiary of Lender Processing Services, to provide document and assignment services for banks and mortgage lenders. With no evidence of ownership or assignment of many of these loans, Docx is accused of scrambling to fabricate documents of assignment to satisfy the requirements for foreclosure in court. The company is presently under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors.
In February 2010, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a lender now has to verify that it had all the proper documents before a foreclosure can proceed. Failure to do so can subject the lender or bank to charges of perjury. In a number of cases, judges have invalidated the foreclosures and returned the properties to the borrowers. In other cases, judges are holding hearings to determine if the lenders have attempted to perpetrate a fraud on the court by presenting fabricated documents.
Under fire, a number of large lenders, such as JP Chase Morgan, Bank of America and GMAC, recently suspended foreclosure proceedings in certain states, pending review of their files to find potential errors. Proceedings were only halted in certain states because not every jurisdiction has a law requiring that foreclosure proceedings to go through court; foreclosures continue to be processed in the states without judicial foreclosure laws.
Because the use of fraudulent documents of assignment is on the rise, it is important to talk to an experienced bankruptcy attorney if you are served foreclosure papers. Even if your mortgage documents are not falsified, you may still have options to save your home.

A recent article in the New York Times reported on the Florida Legislature’s new effort to cut the number of foreclosures throughout the State of Florida. Earlier this year, Florida provided $9.6 million in funding to set up “foreclosure-only” courts across the state. These courts would be staffed by retired judges to accommodate the record-setting number of foreclosures in Florida. The goal of the program, which began in July, is to reduce Florida foreclosures by 62 percent within a year.
However, this new program has come under much scrutiny. Lawyers representing troubled borrowers contend that many of the retired judges called in to oversee these foreclosure cases are so focused on cutting the caseload that they are unfairly favoring financial institutions at the expense of homeowners.
In the article, Chief Judge Victor Tobin in the 17th Judicial Circuit defends the new plan, saying that “There are more assets devoted to those three foreclosure divisions in Broward County than to any other division in the building in terms of case managers and that sort of thing to help the general public. The people who come in get fully, fully heard.”
Florida’s foreclosure mess is made even more complicated by what analysts and lawyers involved in the process say are “questionable practices” by some law firms that are representing banks. Such tactics, these people say, have drawn out the process significantly, making it extremely lucrative for the lawyers and more draining for troubled homeowners. Even a few South Florida law firms have come under such scrutiny regarding their questionable practices when handling the influx of foreclosure cases. Labeled as “foreclosure mills” in the article, often times these firms refuse to work with borrowers and are very aggressive about pushing cases through the courts, even when there are questions about the documentation.
Nevertheless, Florida law requires that before a financial institution can foreclose on a borrower, it must prove to the court that it actually has the standing to do so. Florida law also requires that banks argue their cases before a judge if they want to recover property from borrowers in default, and 471,000 such cases were pending in Florida at the end of July, according to the Florida State Courts administration.
The Florida Supreme Court has recognized the need to hire retired judges on a “temporary” basis and has ruled this as constitutional. However, with these “repeated and consecutive” foreclosures, these may not always qualify as “temporary” and could eventually be in violation of the Florida constitution.
To read more on this story, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/business/05house.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3
Foreclosure defense attorney, Timothy Kingcade has helped many facing foreclosure alleviate their stress by letting them stay in their homes for at least another year, allowing them to re-organize their lives. If you have any questions on the topic of foreclosure please feel free to contact me at (305) 285-9100. You can also find useful consumer information on the Kingcade & Garcia, P.A. website at www.miamibankruptcy.com.