Archive for the ‘From the Heart’ Category
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
South Florida voted, and Oppenheim Law’s South Florida Law Blog came out on top in the category of Best Business and Technology Blog in the 2nd Annual Sun-Sentinel Best of Blogs Awards.
Discussing topics like Florida foreclosure defense, homeowners’ rights, real estate tips and trends, and the economy, Oppenheim Law’s foreclosure defense attorneys interpret the latest news and translate what it all means to today’s homeowner.
Recent headlines include fresh topics like “Deficiency Judgments Haunting Return, Jason Lives Once Again,” “Budgetary Hardball Almost Forces Court Closures: Courts’ Reliance On Foreclosure Fees Exposed” and “Foreclosure Auctions are not eBay or Child’s Play. Novice Investors Beware!”
Over the past year, The South Florida Law Blog has broken down issues like South Florida home sales, national mortgage fraud, America’s job markets, and all the developments in foreclosure defense and short sales to help homeowners take advantage of these trends in areas the banks and the government clearly cannot.
“Homeowners need to be aware of how all of these trends can impact their greatest investment,” Oppenheim said. “We look forward to continuing to provide legal insight and practical analysis into these topics that greatly affect South Florida.”
Oppenheim Law is one of the leading Florida real estate and foreclosure defense law firms, founded in 1989. The firm has a 9.6 out of 10 rating from AVVO, the world’s largest legal directory, as well as the highest rating (A-V) conferred by Martindale Hubbell Law Directory, the most respected directory of lawyers and law firms in the U.S.
Tags: Best of Blogs, Oppenheim Law, Roy Oppenheim, South Florida, South Florida Law Blog, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sun Sentinel
Posted in From the Heart, Roy Oppenheim, Sun Sentinel | 4 Comments »
Friday, April 15th, 2011
Who would ever have thought that the most respected names on Wall Street would cheat the house by playing with a marked deck?
Dear Wall Street: We’re not in Vegas anymore! The Sin City “players” of Wall Street might be trading in the fancy hotel rooms for prison cells.
The SEC is now following the Federal Reserve and the Senate is chastising Wall Street for effectively causing the economic crisis. The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that they too will be joining the bandwagon and fining the major banks on Wall Street for fraudulently causing the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression. They follow on the heels of the Federal Reserve and the United States Senate in lambasting the “banksters”.
Nearly 2
Tags: AC360, Anderson Cooper, bank fraud, Bernie Madoff, CNN, Main Street, Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine, Roy Oppenheim, SEC, Securites and Exchange Commision, wall street
Posted in AC 360, Anderson Cooper, Bank Fraud, CNN, Florida foreclosures, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, From the Heart, International News | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
The government official who recently left office over the housing crisis is someone who actually fought for the people instead of laying the groundwork for a cushy job awaiting him in the private sector. Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for TARP resigned his post effective Wednesday, March 30. On his way out the door, he was still publicly arguing with the Treasury over the legacy of the $700 billion dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”).
Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com called Barofsky “easily one of the most impressive and courageous political officials in Washington” for his willingness to stand up to some of the most powerful people, institutions, and special interest lobbies in Washington and Wall Street.
On March 29, before his departure from office, he wrote a piece for the New York Times titled “Where the Bailout Went Wrong.” The piece, so vicious in its criticisms of the TARP program and politicians in Washington, prompted the Wall Street Journal to run excerpts from it along with their own commentary on the TARP fiasco.
Of the failed bailout Barofsky wrote:
“Two and a half years ago, Congress passed the legislation that bailed out the country’s banks. The government has declared its mission accomplished, calling the program remarkably effective ‘by any objective measure.’ On my last day as the special inspector general of the bailout program, I regret to say that I strongly disagree . . . Almost immediately [after passage], as permitted by the broad language of the act, Treasury’s plan for TARP shifted from the purchase of mortgages [that would have helped everyday homeowners] to the infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars into the nation’s largest financial institutions, a shift that came with the express promise that it would restore lending.”
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Tags: bailout, bailouts, economy, foreclosure crisis, Neil Barofsky, Obama, op-ed, Oppenheim Law, Roy Oppenheim, salon.com, TARP, The New York Times, Troubled Asset Relief Program, Where the Bailouts Went Wrong
Posted in Florida Law News, From the Heart, International News, Roy Oppenheim, Salon.com, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal | No Comments »
Saturday, March 12th, 2011
For five years I’ve discussed the inevitability of Black Swan events that change everything overnight – game changers. Certainly, the earthquake in Japan and the subsequent rash of Tsunamis are reminders of that phenomenon as is the ongoing escalated strife and instability in the Middle East.
Not only have oil prices shot up, we now face a whole new set of issues and concerns from the devastation and dislocation in Japan caused by the sudden earthquake. Further, we will have to remain on edge for the next several weeks as aftershocks are felt in the Pacific Rim and the specter of additional quakes loom throughout the world. The Haiti and Chilean quakes were about a month apart last year, and quakes in Australia and New Zealand preceded this massive quake in Japan.
So you may ask, why is this relevant to me, my home and real estate prices? The answer is simple. In Japan, for example, some areas will have so declined in value that the properties may be close to worthless for years, while other areas spared the devastation may over-night double in value.
In the U.S. where certain communities have an excess supply of homes, I have always considered that part of our nation’s resources: an ark so to speak. God forbid, if America was to suffer the kind of devastation we are seeing in Japan, we will have the ability to move thousands of people quickly into homes that are vacant or abandoned. In fact, the latest estimates suggest 11% of all homes in the U.S. are currently vacant.
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Tags: aftershocks in the Pacific, Austrailian and New Zealand Earthquakes, black swan, Earthquake in Japan, Florida real estate, Hait and Chilean quakes, homes in the U.S. that are vacant, Instability in the Middle East, Oil Prices Up, Oppenheim Law, Oppenheim Law International News, Real Estate, Roy Oppenheim, south florida real estate, Supply of homes, Tsunami in Japan
Posted in Family and Friends, Florida Law News, Florida real estate, Florida short sales, Foreclosure Defense, From the Heart, International News, Roy Oppenheim | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 12th, 2010
by Ellen Pilelsky – From the Heart
There is something so deeply wrong and disturbing with the current foreclosure crisis.
Simply: While most of us have some opinion as to the foreclosure mess, many don’t seem to care about the incredible amount of fraud that has occurred and continues to take place each day.
Some argue that people who fail to pay their mortgages, regardless of their reasons, are “deadbeats.” But, what about the fact some of the largest and wealthiest banks are missing documents used to remove people from their homes? And, in our “rocket docket” State of Florida, there are retired judges who are merely rubber stamping the foreclosure papers filed by the lenders’ firms without actually reviewing the merits of each case?
In Matt Taibbi’s rather eye opening and disturbing article Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners appearing in Rolling Stone Magazine November 10 issue, he recounts a day of going to a Jacksonville court and experiencing first hand the outrageous and flagrant rubber stamping of cases without judicial review.
Shouldn’t it matter that many of these cases result in people being forced to leave their homes when the very banks in question can’t even produce the documents needed to prove their case? Isn’t it a bit odd that these wealthy banks are not being subject to the same level of scrutiny?
Or is this politics as usual? After all, many of these banks sold the mortgages of people to “investors” –other banks or trusts. And, many of those trusts do not have the documentation to prove they have the original documents. Wall Street, in fact, was part of this process and made huge sums of money.
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Tags: banks, Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners, Ellen Pilelsky, Foreclosure Mess, From the Heart, Matt Taibbi, November 2010 Rolling Stone, Oppenheim Law, Rolling Stone, Rubber Stamping, wall street
Posted in Ellen Pilelsky, Foreclosure Defense, Foreclosure Fraud, From the Heart, Rolling Stone, Roy Oppenheim, Short Sales, strategic default | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
From the Heart by Ellen Pilelsky
Picture this. In Florida: Retired judges being pulled out of retirement and paid to sit on foreclosure courts. Purpose: To decrease the amount of Florida’s foreclosure backlog.
Reality? The outcome of many cases is questionable, at best. Seems many of these judges, who may be well intentioned, are actually ruling in favor of the banks despite legitimate issues, such as the financial institution’s ownership of the note and mortgage.
Conflict of Interest? Retired judges are actually being compensated in order to decrease the foreclosure docket. Some argue that since these select judges have a financial interest in decreasing these cases, a homeowner’s constitutional rights may in fact be at jeopardy.
In fact, this past weekend, the New York Times reported injustices done to homeowners facing foreclosure through Florida’s recently created “foreclosure courts.” Simply put, questions are being raised as to whether the retired judges are ignoring problematic or contradictory evidence, especially since some banks have not yet even proven that they own the properties in question.
What next? The Attorney General’s office is investigating foreclosure firms that have submitted questionable ownership documents.
The true question is how did we get to this point? How could foreclosure decisions be rendered by courts where the ownership of the very documents upon which the suits are fashioned are suspect? Where is the consideration of the homeowner’s rights?
Perhaps an appeal of those cases incorrectly decided should be under way. More importantly, perhaps justice should actually be served.
Tags: Ellen Pilelsky, florida foreclosure, Florida Foreclosure Defense, Florida real estate, Foreclosure Defense, Oppenheim Law, Roy Oppenheim, south florida real estate
Posted in From the Heart | No Comments »
