The new foreclosure bill that went into effect in Florida July 1, 2013 will be a trap for the unwary once the mortgage companies get their cases together and start to file foreclosure lawsuits under the new law. Thy’ve started trickling in, but not enough yet to gain any real…
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s position is that they will not agree to a principal reduction in a mortgage modification. So our Florida foreclosure defense and bankruptcy clients are out of luck when their home is worth a lot less than the balance owed. This is their position even after…
Traditionally in Florida, doing a short sale rather than allowing a foreclosure sale to occur is considered much better for your credit. Not so much difference in credit score per se, but mostly for future governmental financing when it is time to buy a home again. You may think who…
Bank of America simply cannot get it right. Our Tampa, Florida law firm sees violations regularly whether it involves foreclosure or bankruptcy. Of particular note these violations are all one way and they put money in BofA’s pocket. If they were truly errors, wouldn’t they immediately be corrected once pointed…
Another tool to help Florida homeowners keep their home and avoid foreclosure will be available this summer. Only Fannie and Freddie owned mortgages are eligible, but starting July 1, 2013, a new streamlined program is being rolled out to help modification efforts. This program will eliminate the strenuous income documentation…
The Miami Herald just remarked that the passage of these Florida foreclosure bills (HB 87 and SB 1666) is an open invitation to more bank fraud. And more houses owned by banks in bulk to be sold to institutional investors. This is an opinion piece published in the Tallahassee Democrat.…
The late night fiscal cliff tenative workout included a proposed extension of the Mortgage Debt Relief Forgiveness Act for one more year to include 2013! Floridians seeking to short sale their home but weren’t able to get it done prior to the end of 2012 can breathe a sigh of…
We are still seeing significant principal reductions for some of our very lucky clients, mostly from Bank of America and Ocwen. An article by Drew Harwell in the Tampa Bay Times and the Orlando Sentinel and the Tampa Bay Times indicates that since March, more than 1,000 Florida homeowners have…
In Florida, typically someone who is sued is served with the lawsuit and given 20 or sometimes 30 days to file a response. If the lawsuit was filed in small claims court, you are given a date to appear at a pretrial conference instead of filing a written response. The…
In a strong opinion favoring Florida homeowners, the Eleventh Circuit slammed the door in the face of debt collectors and mortgage servicers in foreclosure cases making it abundantly clear that calling homeowners multiple times in one day after they have hired an attorney to represent them, using abusive and offensive…