Re-advent of the Rocket Docket

Hi, this is real estate and foreclosure defense attorney Roy Oppenheim. I wanted to give you a quick overview of what’s going on in the foreclosure world in the state of Florida because there’s been a lot of news that has come out in the past few weeks and I want to try and synthesize it all for you.

On the one hand, new foreclosures are down and that is very good for the economy in general. On the other hand, if you are in foreclosure, or if you’re behind on your mortgage and you’re gonna be in foreclosure, the news is rather mixed. On the one hand, you have the legislature that has passed some new legislation that in some ways is going to make it easier for the banks to foreclose but in other ways, it’s going to make it harder for the banks to foreclose.

We don’t know if the Governor’s going to sign it. We’ve written a letter to the Governor urging him not to sign it because of some unconstitutional components of the bill but I’m going to set that aside today. What we’re also seeing is what’s called a rock…the reemergence of the rocket docket. And the legislature has given the court system new funds in order to basically ram through foreclosures, particularly the old ones from 2009, 2010, 2011. They’ve even given them additional funds to hire lawyers to be “magistrates,” and part-time judges in order to get these cases through.

And two things are happening. One, these are going through at such a fast pace that many times the banks are not prepared to bring the trial, and they no longer are in control of the timing of when they’re going to bring the foreclosure. On the other hand, a lot of folks don’t properly know how to conduct themselves in the trial and if they’re unprepared they will lose. Ironically enough, just in the past 72 hours, we have… Or the last three business days, four business days, we have won two cases where the banks have lost their foreclosure trial and our homeowners ended up with the homes.

The reasons for that are very technical, but if you look at it and analyze why there was such an asymmetrical result, it has to do with the facts, that clearly the banks were not prepared and we were. And so, we continue to say if you’re in foreclosure to stand your ground. Contact a competent foreclosure defense attorney like folks at our firm but if you’re in other parts of the state and don’t want to do that, contact someone else. But do contact a competent foreclosure defense attorney. Do not give up. Stand your ground, and we wish you all the best of luck. Roy Oppenheim, from the trenches. Have a great day.