Please sign this petition if you live in Florida, its
important!!!
Subject: RE: House Bill 87
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:24:40 -0700
This is the Petition for the opposing this bill:
This is very informative:
Thank you,
Nancy Bankston
P.O. Box 1719
Summerfield, Fl 34492
352-307-2267
The information contained in this email and the supporting
attachments provided by Titans Reserve Group, PMA are for educational purposes
only. Although we have performed extensive research regarding legal principles,
our trustees, officers and supporting staff of Titans Reserve Group, PMA are
not licensed members of the State Bar of Florida. Information provided by
members of Titans Reserve Group, PMA should not be considered a substitute for
the advice of a licensed attorney in handling your legal affairs.
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:27:05 -0400
Subject: House Bill 87
FORECLOSURES
New Florida bill would speed up the foreclosure
process
A bill filed this week in the Florida House
could pave the way for faster foreclosures in Florida.
By Toluse Olorunnipa
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- A “faster foreclosures” proposal that sparked consumer outcry and protest last year has resurfaced in a
more moderate form, with a new bill filed this week by Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples.
The bill, HB 87, offers a slew of changes to the civil procedures
governing foreclosures in Florida, where home repossessions are on the rise
again.
Most of the provisions are aimed at speeding up and cleaning up
the foreclosure process, which currently takes more 600 days to run its course
in Florida.
“We need to make the sure the process is as efficient as possible
while at the same time giving the borrower their due process rights,” said
Passidomo. “Unfortunately, if you don’t have an income or you can’t afford to
pay anything, the property can’t just sit in limbo forever.”
The bill — which proposes strict paperwork requirements for
lenders, fast-track foreclosure procedures and a shield against some thorny
legal scenarios — comes at a time when banks are beginning to rev up their
foreclosure machines again after a two-year lull.
Foreclosure filings in Florida jumped 20 percent in the last year,
and the Sunshine State now has the nation’s highest foreclosure rate. And even
though the housing market is improving, there are plenty of foreclosures still
set to take place in the coming years. One in five mortgages in the state are
currently delinquent, and more than half of those have not yet entered the
foreclosure process, according to Lender Processing Services.
Lenders spent two years cooling down their home repossession
machines after news surfaced in 2010 that bank employees had been rapidly
filling out foreclosure paperwork without properly reviewing it. The “robo-signing”
scandal led to a landmark $25 billion national settlement between states and
five major banks last year, clearing the way for a more streamlined foreclosure
process.
But nearly a year after the settlement was announced, foreclosures
continue to slog slowly through the court system in Florida.
Passidomo’s bill aims to speed things up. It requires mortgage
lenders to certify that they have the correct paperwork proving they have the
right to foreclose.
The measure also gives condominium associations the ability to
speed up the foreclosure process when a bank is moving too slowly. Condo
associations have been forced to shoulder significant maintenance costs while
banks carry out foreclosures. Banks have been accused of purposefully slowing
down the process in order to limit their costs.
For their part, banks get a bit of a gift in the bill as well.
Currently, if a lender forecloses on a home and later is sued for doing so
wrongfully, the lender can only be forced to pay monetary damages. That means
the homeowner can’t get his or her house back — a proposition that could be
especially difficult if the bank has sold the home to an unsuspecting third
party. Passidomo’s bill would eliminate that awkward scenario, and free the
bank from having to recoup a house it sold to another party after a faulty
foreclosure.
Some consumer advocates are already speaking out against the bill.
It’s the third attempt by lawmakers in the last three years to push for
foreclosure reform — and each has led to consumer outcry, including a march on
the state Capitol last year.
“Might be a good time to start contacting your Florida state
representatives in the state House and Senate on this issue,” Lisa Epstein, a
West Palm Beach foreclosure activist, wrote in an email to her followers. “The
more Floridians who oppose this bill and the earlier they oppose it, the
better.”
The bill sheds some of the controversial provisions of the 2012
proposal, which passed the Florida House but died in the Senate last year.
A provision that would have allowed for faster foreclosures on
homes that appear to be abandoned has been scrapped from the new bill. The
“apparently-abandoned property” measure faced backlash from consumer advocates
who said people would be thrown out of their homes without proper notice.
The measure includes a provision that consumer activists supported
last year to limit banks’ ability to go after homeowners for additional debt
after a foreclosure.
Banks currently have five years to pursue a so-called “deficiency
judgment” against a homeowner. The bill reduces that time-period to one-year.
“The bill has far more borrower protections than what is current,”
said Passidomo.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/04/3167640/new-florida-bill-would-speed-up.html#storylink=cpy
1 comment:
For the fourth year in a row, an anti-consumer, Anti-American bill, backed by the very powerful mortgage servicing industry, is cruising through the Florida House of Representatives, and this time, it looks like it could actually become law! It has already passed through a very important committee.
After 4 years of trying, it appears Wall Street has finally purchased enough of our state legislators to enact a bill that will eliminate due process and fundamental justice in Florida foreclosure cases. Rep. Kathleen Passidomo’s HB 87, perversely named Florida Fair Foreclosure Act, makes it much easier for mortgage companies to foreclose on residential mortgages by literally eliminating a homeowner’s right to fight the foreclosure.
Anti-American bill proposed by Florida’s Republican Party.
Fact: The proposed bill shifts the burden of proof to the defendant
As Americans, we have earned our “Day in Court.” However, HB 87 actually shifts the burden to homeowners to present evidence that they shouldn’t have their house taken away. The plaintiff no longer need to present evidence at all.
Under the proposed bill, a bank files a civil complaint alleging the necessary elements of a foreclosure. The Court then sets a “Show Cause” hearing, wherein the homeowner must disprove the allegations.
Fact: A Judge can ignore evidence that the foreclosure is improper
Even if the homeowner has the ability to provide actual proof that a foreclosure is improper, a trial judge is free to ignore the evidence and enter a foreclosure.
This provision has become even more anti-homeowner since last year.
3. State that the filing of defenses by a motion, responsive pleading, affidavits, or other papers or by a verified or sworn answer at or before the hearing to show cause may constitute constitutes cause for the court not to enter the attached final judgment.
Why would the Republicans add the word “may”? The message is clear to foreclosure judges, most of whom were appointed specifically to ram foreclosures through the Courts, “You are free to ignore any evidence submitted by the homeowner.” What if the homeowner brings cancelled checks proving payment and no default? IGNORE!
Fact: Foreclosures are slow for many reasons, but the legal process isn’t one.
Fact: Florida law already has an expedited foreclosure procedure
The mortgage industry and their lawyers do not use this procedure because they WANT to create a perception of a backlog to encourage lawmakers to pass a more oppressive bill.
Fact: The proposed bill encourages fraud
Under HB 87, foreclosure judgments will be final, and that once the foreclosure is completed, even if it was fraudulent or void for other reasons, the homeowner cannot get their property back, even in Court. They can only get a money judgment. So, the game plan is to ramrod foreclosures, displacing American taxpayers from their homes, and even when a homeowner overcomes all odds and convinces an appellate court that the bank committed fraud, the only remedy is “damages.” And in a case when the homeowner voids the Final Judgment of Foreclosure, the Courts will tell the homeowner, “You weren’t damaged because your home was underwater. You didn’t lose anything.”
Fact: The Proposed bill is retroactive
Under HB 87, the expedited foreclosure procedure would apply to homeowners who have been fighting the fraud in their cases for years. These many homeowners who have endured years of litigation with Goliath and are winning could now lose their Day in Court.
Fact: This bill will become law this legislative session if you don’t voice your opposition
Will Florida’s Republican Party succeed? I guess that depends upon whether you do anything about it.
Please contact your state representatives and tell them you don’t want the banking industry to buy our court system, and you want them to put the property right of Floridians above the greed of Wall Street
http://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/is-this-the-year-wall-street-completes-its-purchase-of-floridas-court-system/
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