FLORIDA Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

On Friday, late in the day, when almost everyone else had already gone home Gov. Scott signed house bill 87 that will speed up foreclosures.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, ignoring veto pleas from consumer advocates, on Friday signed two measures into law that could affect renters and homeowners across the state. One bill, House Bill 87,  will speed up the foreclosure process in Florida. The other makes it easier for landlords to evict tenants.

The landlord-tenant bill comes at a time when more and more people in the state have become renters due to the foreclosure crisis that has troubled Florida for years. Many homeowners have been displaced from their original homesteads due to the Foreclosure crisis of the past few years.
Under the new law, a tenant could pay partial rent and still be evicted within days if they fail to turn over the rest of the money. The measure would also allow a landlord to evict a tenant if a person breaks rules twice in one year. Those rules can include parking in the wrong spot or having an unauthorized pet.

Florida was one of the hardest hit by the Foreclosure Crisis that began in late 2007.  Those foreclosure cases quickly swamped an already overworked court system even to this day.

Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said earlier this year that her bill preserves due-process rights for distressed homeowners while trying to stimulate Florida's real-estate market by getting foreclosed property "back into the stream of commerce."
The legislation would make banks prove in more detail that they own a mortgage or explain why they can't prove ownership. It also creates a process for others besides mortgage-holders to ask the court to speed up foreclosure cases.  Another key provision would reduce the statute of limitations, or amount of time, for banks to go after foreclosed homeowners on deficiency judgments -- from five years to one year. Deficiencies are the difference between the money obtained from selling a foreclosed home and what the original homeowner still owes on it.

Governor Scott, in a bill signing letter, contended that the legislation would "bring more certainty to the housing market." "This process will put these homes back onto the housing market and allow Florida families who have experienced a foreclosure to begin working to repair their credit and finances," Scott wrote.
The law will also allow any lienholder, including community associations (HOA’s), to request a so-called “show cause” order that would require a homeowner to muster a defense more quickly and give the judge the ability to make a faster ruling.  You see people, this is one reason I’ve always said, “Pay the HOA as long as you can”.

Personally I think it’s going to bring a lot more than that. We all know it’s going to put a lot more inventory on the market. Real Estate prices have risen due to lack of inventory for one. What do you suppose will happen when we have twice the amount of inventory on the market? The hedge fund investors that were buying up everything have already moved onto better investment choices since the price increases so many are not in the market right now.  This could mean we are seeing the beginning of the second Foreclosure Bubble here in Florida.

Lawyers who represent homeowners in foreclosure cases have already said they plan to sue to challenge the new foreclosure law. Matt Weidner, a St. Petersburg attorney, said one of the provisions of the bill limits the ability of a judge to correct a simple mistake in a foreclosure order.

"This finality of foreclosure provision provides that if a home is lost to foreclosure, even if the foreclosure was the product of gross fraud, complete error or total mistake, the innocent consumer can never, ever get their home back," Weidner stated.

With the timeline for deficiency judgments from the banks reduced to one year from five, you know they will seek to collect it now. Either the banks will start in house collections or there will be mass deficiency judgment docs sold to collection companies. Maybe this will become another new investment area for those hedge fund companies out there.

In a nutshell what we have here is that the Governor signed bill, HB87, is helping the banks and not preserving the Homeowners Rights.  The new law, which is now law, makes proof irrelevant if the court chooses to disregard it. For non-owner occupied home owners must pay contested mortgage payments into a court registry, even if the bank can not prove it owns the home, in order to maintain foreclosure defense. BH87 makes foreclosure judgments final. If the foreclosure was obtained by fraud, after judgment the former homeowner can never challenge it. Under HB87 the banks would not have to prove their foreclosure case as they do now. You say you already began the process a month ago? HB87 allows current cases in litigation to be subject to a new legal standard that did not exist when the case was filed. That gives the banks an unfair advantage in current foreclosure cases.

Tomorrow will begin a new day for Florida Foreclosures and the people that have already been served and those going through a short sale right now. Many are feeling that this new law will put a dead stop on the Short Sale. Especially if a lender can foreclose in 45 days, many banks need that much time just to get a loan finished so a buyer can buy a short sale, and that is only after the short sale has been approved.

Never a dull moment here in the sunshine state, especially when it comes to what looks like becoming The Florida Foreclosure Crisis.

Paul Antonelli                  
That Short Sale Guy
REALTOR & BROKER at
ANTONELLI Realty
Orlando, FL
321-443-4028