Florida Mortgage Modification Lawyer Blog

With the 2010 elections upon us, some federal lawmakers headed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are calling for a federal investigation into how banks are handling foreclosures stemming from reports of “robo-signatures” and other practices. The call for the probe also considers a statement by the U.S. Attorney General saying banks “have repeatedly misled and obstructed homeowners from receiving help Congress and the administration have sought to provide.”

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State Court Judges are tired of big foreclosure dockets, and they are tired of foreclosure law firms who fail to appear for hearings. It appears the courts are getting tougher on foreclosure mills in Sarasota and Manatee County, Florida.

Recently, according to the Miami Herald, a Manatee County Circuit Court Judge sanctioned the law firm of Smith Hiatt & Diaz $49,000 for “deliberate, willful, and flagrant” contempt for setting, then missing two foreclosure hearings. Apparently this was not a one-time event but similar incidents of not showing or cancelling hearings at the last minute had occurred in the past.

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Recently, the Florida Attorney General began investigating several law firms handling large numbers foreclosure cases which have been described as “foreclosure mills” for filing fraudulent documents with the court.

Unfortunately, investigation hit a bit of a snag on October 4, 2010; hopefully it will just be temporary. In a hearing on a motion to quash a subpoena against one of the firms, the Judge ruled the Florida Attorney General’s subpoena was overbroad and unduly burdensome. Normally, that issue can be resolved by fine-tuning the subpoena more narrowly and then building upon what you discover later. However, the Judge went further and called into question the Florida Attorney General’s constitutional authority to even investigate law firms as they are regulated by the Florida Supreme Court and the Florida Bar.

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Recently, we wrote about the GMAC foreclosure mess. Then came the JP Morgan and Bank of America disasters, and we are not done yet. The recent actions taken by some of the largest lenders of home loans in suspending foreclosures threatens to further hamper an already fragile housing market. As many people search for relief in a housing market that has left many homeowners underwater or not being able to meet their mortgage payments, the actions of these lenders in failing to properly document and/or in falsifying foreclosure documents, is placing another hurdle on the road to recovery. With distressed sales account for almost a third of all sales, the potential consequences are alarming.

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