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60 Minutes: Roy Oppenheim Adds #Foreclosure and Homeless to #OccupyWallStreet

Friday, December 2nd, 2011
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60 Minutes shed light on an alarming statistic: two thirds of Florida homeless families live on the street, many as a result of foreclosure. South Florida Law Blog and Oppenheim Law question the role Wall Street played in moving the staggering 16 million homeless in the U.S. from living on Main Street to living in cars and shelters.

While some underwater homeowners are supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement from the comfort of their own living room in a silent foreclosure protest; other financially fractured families are forced out of their living rooms by the banks to live out of cars by night and blend into the real world by day, with their kids!

South Florida Law Blog shares this 60 minutes segment with you in case you missed it! Read the full story in the Oppeneheim Law newsroom about:

  • Florida’s foreclosure social stigma is ending
  • The systemic arrogance of the banking and Wall Street community
  • Social commentators mocking the Occupy Movement really just don’t get it
  • Bailouts over the past years have benefited only a fraction of society
  • Crony capitalism is not what our founders had in mind and further enlarging a movement that includes not only Occupy Wall Street but Occupy Your Living Room and Occupy Your Car.
As a reminder of a piece we published when the whole foreclosure crisis started: What to tell our childern about foreclosure by Ellen Pilelsky.

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Posted in Florida Law News | 1 Comment »

Own vs Rent: Florida Stronger Allure for Home Buyers

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
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Are the days of foreclosure turning into buy-closure?

Owning a home in Florida continues to become the more affordable option relative to renting, but several obstacles prevent many from taking the plunge according to a recent Florida real estate article in the Wall Street Journal.

 

The inventory of unsold homes has declined sharply from one year ago in many markets including Florida. While Oppenheim Law agrees price declines and low mortgage rates have pushed affordability to its best level in the past decade, the prospect of falling prices, more Florida foreclosures, and economic uncertainty continue to hold back the demand of leery wanna-be homeowners.

What makes this a Florida real estate buyer’s market?

  • Home values have declined
  • Apartment renting is expected to escalate in price
  • Mortgage rates are at the lowest in six months, hovering at 4 percent
  • Inventory in markets such as Miami are down by almost half compared to last year
What makes this a questionable buyer’s market for Florida real estate?
  • Mortgage rates are expected to stay low, so there is no sense of urgency to buy now according to analysts
  • The potential supply of homes is much bigger because banks have yet to process hundreds of thousands of potential foreclosures.
The question of buying versus renting is not a black and white decision, even for the Florida sunshine state where there is evidence of progress and hope. If you are considering buying a home, Weston Title & Escrow can guide you through the process.

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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Florida real estate | 1 Comment »

Roy Oppenheim Gives Thanks to Florida Homeowners

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year.

I always ask myself why and come to the same conclusions: Traditions!

Whether you are born in the U.S., a recent immigrant or like me, a first generation from immigrant parents … on Thanksgiving we are not just all Americans … but we are all Hundred Percenters. That’s right. Not 99 percenters or one percenters, but 100 percenters. We are all the same. We are the same united by each of our own respective traditions that include common denominators such as family, friends, food, sharing, relaxing, football, volunteering, maybe a little shopping and most importantly giving thanks.

For the Oppenheims, like many other families with kids in college, it means making sure they have plane tickets to fly home and carve out time to share cherished family hang outs.

It also means to make sure the kids are home to participate in the Oppenheim annual Thanksgiving Day turkey standoff. That’s right a standoff. You see, for the past 19 years I have made a roasted turkey in an old used enamel cracked crock pot inherited from a neighbor planning on discarding that pot. That started a whole ritual on how we prepare the turkey and vegetables that go into the hand me down pot. The whole process starts around 9:00 a.m. Thursday morning and by 10:30 the bird goes into the oven for several hours.

Where is the standoff you may ask? Well you see, like all traditions that is the beauty of Thanksgiving, traditions evolve.

Three years ago David, my childhood friend from New York, and his family began joining us for Thanksgiving in Florida. And true to form, David also has developed his own tradition: to fry a turkey every Thanksgiving. Thus the annual turkey standoff began.
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Posted in Florida Law News | 2 Comments »

Occupy Your Living Room! What? #OccupyWallStreet Via Foreclosure

Friday, November 18th, 2011
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Some underwater and financially fractured homeowners are supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement from the comfort of their own living room.

As the Occupy Wall Street completes its two-month anniversary and demonstrators were removed from Zuccotti Park, let’s take a moment to reflect on why these demonstrations are now resonating with both Main Street America and homeowners that are underwater or in foreclosure.

Maybe because it’s a revolution born by the systemic arrogance of the banking and Wall Street community that pushed our economy off a cliff and now continues to hold the whole country at bay.

“Our political system should serve all of us — not just the very rich and powerful. Right now Wall Street owns Washington,” said participant Beka Economopoulos. “We are the 99% and we are here to reclaim our democracy.”

Flash Back – Shays’ Rebellion

If we just go back a few years to the height of the economic crisis in 2007/2008, I did a short video on Shays’ Rebellion 2.0. In that video I discuss how the farmers in Western Massachusetts ended up protesting an unfair system that forcibly foreclosed upon the farmers during a severe economic recession caused by a severe drought. Shay and his compatriots ended up storming the courthouse and judges that were allowing the banks to foreclose on the homes and farms and in fact placing some of the debtors in jail at the time.

For those who know their history the great irony of Shays’ Rebellion is that it caused post-revolutionary colonial America to reassess their government structure and was in fact a key catalyst for the formation of today’s United States of America.
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Posted in Florida Law News, Occupy Wall Street, Shay’s Rebellion | 1 Comment »

#Fail – Government Plan to Help #Florida Homeowners

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
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Why is the Independent Foreclosure Review a Big Fail Whale

The Independent Foreclosure Review Gets Fail Whale

At first glance, it looks like Florida foreclosure victims are finally getting the help they need from the feds. Reading the fine print it looks like if we had to describe this in one tweet word: #fail. The same banksters that sunk the economic ship into the mortgage crisis are now the decision makers for homeowners looking for foreclosure mercy. Sounds to us like homeowners are being asked to sleep with the enemy.

What is the Independent Foreclosure Review? –According to the official website

 

As part of a consent order with federal bank regulators, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) (independent bureaus of the U.S. Department of the Treasury), or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, fourteen mortgage servicers and their affiliates are identifying customers who were part of a foreclosure action on their primary residence during the period of January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010.

The Independent Foreclosure Review is providing homeowners the opportunity to request an independent review of their foreclosure process. If the review finds that financial injury occurred as a result of errors, misrepresentations or other deficiencies in the servicer’s foreclosure process, the customer may receive compensation or other remedy.

Oppenheim Law Says Faulty Failure? The Independent Foreclosure Plan

Unfortunately, the government has again come up with yet another faulty plan to try and help homeowners by creating the Independent Foreclosure Review. It’s objective is to compensate homeowners who sustained financial injury because of the banks unethical and even illegal banking practices.
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Posted in Florida foreclosures, Florida Law News, Foreclosure Defense | 5 Comments »

Florida Supreme Court Listens! Banks Must Play Nice in Mediation

Monday, November 14th, 2011
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Oppenheim on Banks Behaving Badly

Banks Behaving Badly?

Banks behaving badly? Florida homeowners can look forward to new and improved mediation behavior from the banks! We are happy to report there is a new set of rules for banks and the Florida Supreme Court finally started listening to Roy Oppenheim ‘s messages with regard to sanctionable conduct by the banks during mediation!

 

A recent South Florida Law blog pointed out a number of issues that Oppenheim has addressed on numerous occasions.

FloridaForeclosureNews : ChangesinForeclosureMediationProgram | SouthFloridaLawBlog.

Now we’re glad to report the Supreme Court has made amendments to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.720 (Mediation Procedure). One of the concerns mentioned by Oppenheim was that the banks were acting in bad faith during mediation. This is particularly true when authorized representatives had no real authority to settle during mediation.

As Oppenheim previously mentioned in a recent Palm Beach Post article, “You have someone on the phone from the bank and the only thing they have is a computer monitor in front of them and the only thing they can do is modify,” he said. “It’s not mediation; its modification or bust.”

Foreclosuremediationprogram‘slowrateofsuccessleavesitsfutureindoubt

The new mediation procedure now demands that the lender representative have “full authority to settle.” What this means is that the party representative has to be the final decision maker without needing to make further consultation during settlement matters and must have the “legal capacity to execute a binding settlement agreement on behalf of the parties.”

This revision to the mediation program will allow for the mediation process to run more effectively by encouraging banks to reach settlement agreements with borrowers. There is at least a chance, even if remote; that a settlement can be reached because the party representing the bank will be able to have the final word on whether or not to settle.
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Posted in Florida Law News, Mediation Procedure | 1 Comment »

Florida Real Estate Close up: Three Healthy Florida Markets

Friday, November 11th, 2011
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CitiCentre and Resorts World Miami, expected to add tens of thousands of jobs in coming years

As a follow up to South Florida Law Blog’s post reporting that Miami Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville and Bradenton/Sarasota/Venice were included in the top 20 healthiest real estate markets in the United States - let’s dig in deeper to what is the secret formula.

What we’re taking away from these numbers is there is an upswing in growth in these Florida communities, and a stabilization in the tough job market, making all of these cities places prospective home buyers need to consider.

  • Miami/Fort Lauderdale/Pompano Beach

Perhaps one of the most positive signs to come out of South Florida is the tremendous upswing in forecasted building permits in 2012, up to 7,522 from just 2,708 in 2011, with about half of that coming from traditional multi-family homes.

Job growth and big projects coming

Jobs are expected to grow 2.7 percent, and home prices, which fell by double digits in the first half of ‘11, are beginning to turn around.

While unemployment does remain high in this South Florida, jobs in Miami are coming slow but steady with two big upcoming projects, the CitiCentre and Resorts World Miami, expected to add tens of thousands of jobs in coming years. The site also reports the Port of Miami has three projects on the horizon that will prepare the port to handle bigger ships and more cargo.

  • Bradenton/Sarasota/Venice

Located between Tampa and Fort Myers, these cities in Manatee and Sarasota counties came in at #9 on Builder’s list. They cite an upswing in permit activity, mostly in Manatee County, for multi-family homes. According to Builder Pulte, D.R. Horton, and Lennar along with local builders Neal Communities and Lee Wetherington Homes, as among the more active builders.
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Posted in Florida Law News | No Comments »

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