New South Florida foreclosures are down. After reporting the No. 1 foreclosure rate for two consecutive months, the metro area covering Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties fell to third in April, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

Nationwide, foreclosure activity fell to its lowest level in six years.

Meantime, several of the big banks have actually halted foreclosure sales to ensure they are complying with federal guidelines.

In his most recent “From the Trenches” video, Oppenheim about the newly passed foreclosure legislation – HB 87 – which is awaiting Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s signature. Roy wrote a letter to Scott asking him not to sign the bill, pointing out that if passed it could push homeowners out of their residences without the due process to which they are entitled.

There also has been a re-emergence of the so-called “rocket docket” with the Florida Supreme Court giving its blessing to a plan that allows for lawyers to serve as general magistrates to help push the hundreds of thousands pending foreclosures through the court system.

What are the implications of this decision? Watch the video to find out.

Real estate and foreclosure defense attorney, Roy Oppenheim left Wall Street for Main Street, founding Oppenheim Law along with his wife Ellen in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also is vice president of Weston Title and creator of the South Florida Law Blog, named the best business and technology blog by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Follow Roy on Twitter at @OpLaw or like Oppenheim Law on Facebook

In his most recent “From the Trenches” video, Oppenheim talks about the fact that it’s become a seller’s market. When it comes to short sales, Oppenheim says it’s not unusual to see multiple offers. This is having a trickle down effect on the rest of the economy. Construction is starting to heat up, movers benefit as do realtors, mortgage brokers, real estate attorneys and title companies.

Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department reported applications for new construction rose to a five-year high. Building permits shot up 14 percent, the highest since June 2008. That indicates not only is the economy starting to simmer, but that more potential home buyers are dipping their toes into the real estate market.

However, we are not out of the woods yet, according to Roy, since so-called “rocket dockets” continue to plague those already in foreclosure.

Find out more of what Oppenheim has to say about the housing recovery by watching his video.

Real estate and foreclosure defense attorney, Roy Oppenheim left Wall Street for Main Street, founding Oppenheim Law along with his wife Ellen in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also is vice president of Weston Title and creator of the South Florida Law Blog, named the best business and technology blog by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Follow Roy on Twitter at @OpLaw or like Oppenheim Law on Facebook

CSA Astronaut Chris Hadfield strums his guitar in the International Space Station’s Cupola. Credit: NASA

Have you seen the YouTube video of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield singing David Bowie’s “Ground Control to Major Tom” from the International Space Station? The social media loving space man has become a YouTube sensation with more than 10.5 million (yep that’s million) hits and growing. And that’s only within the span of about a week.

While the space race slows down, the rest of the planet (which you can see clearly from Hadfield’s video) pretty much has lost interest in space travel, The Canadian astronaut has single-handedly created what might be considered a Renaissance for space exploration.

It’s this kind of adventurous spirit, ingenuity and creativity that have made the world a better place to live. And it’s that kind of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking that we need to bring to America’s financial sector and in particular the banking industry.

Oppenheim Law was recently interviewed by banking, legislation, regulatory policy, and litigation publisher Bloomberg BNA on many legal topics – from the “dubious constitutionality” of so-called rocket dockets, to why the planet’s biggest banks must be broken up to remain competitive.

Ironically, the sub headline that BNA gave to the section relating to the breaking up of the banking industry was “Science Fiction” and appropriately so.

I talk about how if we turned the country’s five or six largest banks into 20 or even 30 smaller ones – we would unleash a type of capitalism and creation of new products and concepts that we can’t even begin to envision.

“We would be traveling outside of our solar system much faster. We would be visiting more planets,” I told BNA reporter Kevin Lambert. “Why does all this have to come from science fiction similar to space travel? Banks that weren’t –literally – trying to control the governments could finance this kind of stuff. And that’s the problem. If we broke them up and they could go back to what they were supposed to be doing, I think we would be advancing civilization in a way that would unleash a new Renaissance in this world.”

So, how do the two correlate? Let’s go back to Ma Bell, instead of having just one giant phone company that stymied competition and innovation, the company was broken into Baby Bells, which caused them all to have to be better than the next to get customers’ attention.

That type of competition is what fosters creativity and with that creativity – as in the case of Ma Bell – came numerous technological advances including the Internet and wireless communication.

I have been singing the same song for years, but as we all know breaking up is hard to do.

On a positive note, several people who are in a better position than I, including U.S. Attorney Eric Holder, are beginning to hum the same tune I have been singing. Earlier this year, he admitted that America’s biggest banks are indeed too big to jail and too big to fail and it’s high time something is done about it.

Real estate and foreclosure defense attorney, Roy Oppenheim left Wall Street for Main Street, founding Oppenheim Law along with his wife Ellen in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also is vice president of Weston Title and creator of the South Florida Law Blog, named the best business and technology blog by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Follow Roy on Twitter at @OpLaw or like Oppenheim Law on Facebook

Florida is known as the nation’s capital in foreclosure fraud.

A Florida man was recently sentenced to 26 years in prison for foreclosure and short sale fraud. John Lebron, 33, was convicted last week of setting up a complex scheme to buy and sell foreclosed houses, make money on each part of the deal, and default on the loans. He is hardly alone among foreclosure offenders.

Florida is known as the nation’s capital in foreclosure fraud. The state was among the hardest hit by the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequently has seen countless homeowners who can’t make their mortgage payments. In the first quarter of this year alone, one in every 104 houses in the state received a foreclosure notice for a total of 85,671, a rate three times the national average, according market research firm RealtyTrac.

Of the top ten metro areas in the country with the highest foreclosure rates, seven are in Florida, led by the Miami area at number one. The state projects that it will process over a million foreclosure cases in the next four years, according to the Palm Beach Press. And a lot of foreclosures means a lot of opportunities for scams.

Lebron’s scheme involved a complicated house-flopping maneuver using straw purchasers to rip off the banks. However, many of the foreclosure scams out there are aimed directly at distressed homeowners, attempts to wring out what little cash they can come up with or steal the houses outright.

Scams Everywhere

How can you avoid getting caught up in a scam? Homeowners subjected to foreclosure proceedings are likely to be deluged with mail and phone calls from attorneys and companies offering to help out. Anyone facing foreclosure really should engage an attorney, but the trick is to make sure it’s someone reputable.

“The folks you really have to watch out for are the ones who are heavily advertising on the Internet or television,” says Roy D. Oppenheim, founder of real estate firm Oppenheim Law in Florida. “The acquisition cost of clients is so high that they are more of a marketing operation than legal service.”

Shady ventures could acquire hundreds or thousands of clients with only a contracted lawyer or two to handle all of the cases, meaning the firm will likely be of little help even if it isn’t running an outright scam. Beware of organizations promising to save your house or clear your mortgage for free, and avoid out-of-state firms. “Foreclosure defense is a local practice,” says Oppenheim. “You need a relationship with judges, and with the opposing counsel. How will a lawyer from Los Angeles represent someone in Florida?”

To perform due diligence and vet your attorney, check out the ratings on websites like Martindale.com, or call up the state bar association to see if there have been complaints registered.” Word of mouth still works, speaking with friends, or people in the neighborhood,” Oppenheim says. “Choose the same way you would choose a stock broker or doctor.”

Too Good to be True

An attorney will guide homeowners through the process and help achieve the best possible outcome, be it a short sale, a deed in lieu of foreclosure, a loan modification or refinance or even a fight over the validity of the foreclosure. One point that shouldn’t be lost is that a good attorney under the right circumstances can actually achieve a “too good to be true” outcome.

The foreclosing entity may not actually possess the loan agreement, or may have improperly robosigned the foreclosure without ensuring it was valid. In Florida, there is a statute of limitations of five years on foreclosures, so once delays start coming in and the bank’s standing is challenged there is a chance that homeowners could get off scot-free. “Should the statute run out, you are in a position where you can have the note and mortgage voided. When that happens, you may end up with never having to pay the mortgage back,” says Oppenheim. “I tell my clients it’s like winning the lottery.”

Understand that a voided mortgage is a slim possibility, but watch out for disreputable companies that promise a free house from the get-go without knowing any of the individual circumstances of a foreclosure. “If they start making too many promises, I would head for the hills,” the attorney says. “Put my hand on my wallet and run.”

Real estate and foreclosure defense attorney, Roy Oppenheim left Wall Street for Main Street, founding Oppenheim Law along with his wife Ellen in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also is vice president of Weston Title and creator of the South Florida Law Blog, named the best business and technology blog by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Follow Roy on Twitter at @OpLaw or like Oppenheim Law on Facebook

House Bill 87 Expedites the Foreclosure Process

Gov. Rick Scott must decide soon whether he will sign into law a bill designed to speed up the residential mortgage foreclosure process.

Supporters of House Bill 87 say they hope it will help ease a foreclosure backlog and rejuvenate the housing sector. But there is cause for alarm as the bill could push homeowners out of their residences without the due process to which they are entitled.

Real estate attorney Roy Oppenheim sent the following letter to Gov. Scott asking him not to make this bill become the law of the land.

As a practicing real estate attorney for 26 years who represents homeowners in foreclosure, and a national legal commentator for U.S. News and World Report and Yahoo!, I would like to take this opportunity to comment on Florida House Bill 87, which is before you for signature.

Based on my review of the bill and my first-hand experience in various courthouses in the state defending foreclosures, I find the proposed bill highly inappropriate in that it violates the constitutional tenant of Ex Post Facto through retroactive application of the law to rights of residential property owners.

When you vetoed Senate Bill 718 concerning alimony reform and stated that you would not support [the] legislation because it applies retroactively and thus tampers with the settled economic “expectations of many Floridians.” You went on to add that the retroactive nature of the bill “could result in unfair, unanticipated results.”

Florida House Bill 87 would likewise apply retroactively to “all mortgages encumbering real property and all promissory notes secured by a mortgage, whether executed before, on or after the effective date” of the bill.

One such retroactive provision of the bill applies to borrowers who have not defaulted on their loans and who have been wrongfully foreclosed upon. Such parties will lose their legal right to have their homes return to them.

Allowing the bill to apply retroactively to existing mortgages and notes would constitute an unconstitutional impairment of contracts in violation of Article I, Section 10 of the Florida Constitution. If you sign the bill into law, it would unconditionally impair the rights of residential property owners in the state of Florida, and further disrupt the Florida economy by creating uncertainty as to the constitutionality and fairness of the bill.

I thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration.

Roy Oppenheim

Real estate and foreclosure defense attorney, Roy Oppenheim left Wall Street for Main Street, founding Oppenheim Law along with his wife Ellen in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also is vice president of Weston Title and creator of the South Florida Law Blog, named the best business and technology blog by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Follow Roy on Twitter at @OpLaw or like Oppenheim Law on Facebook.

Computer hackers, like banks, manage to get away with financial malfeasance.

It used to be that the underworld was where you would expect to find ATM thieves. But the world has changed, and with it the way that bank crimes are being committed.

Take for example news reports about a “global posse” of cyber thieves who made off with some $45 million from bank ATMs in 26 countries in what authorities are calling a first-of-its kind cybercrime heist.

Armed not with guns, but with laptops, this group of hackers managed not only to get into the computer networks of financial companies in the U.S. and India, but also to do away with the ATM cash withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards.

The good news here is that no individuals lost money. Instead, the crooks plundered money held by banks.

Just seven people have been indicted. An eighth, considered to be the ringleader, was found dead in the Dominican Republic.

It was a sophisticated crime that essentially turned the tables on the banking industry – which over the years has found ways to manipulate the financial markets and create one of the largest economic crises in U.S. history.

The difference between what happened with the ATM heist and what some of the country’s biggest banks have, and continue to do, is that those thieves got caught and will be punished – and the ringleader is dead. But America’s banks continue to manipulate the market and get away with this financial malfeasance because, as we all know, they are considered too big to fail

Lawmakers have been giving a lot of lip service to cracking down on how banks will operate in the future, most recently with the introduction of the “Terminating Bailouts for Taxpayer Fairness Act of 2013 Act,” which sponsors argue will keep “any one financial institution from becoming so large and overleveraged that it could put our economy on the brink of collapse or trigger the need for a federal bailout.”

Despite those efforts, banks continue to sit in the catbird seat, able to maintain control of the market any way they can.

More recently, we have seen potential home buyers clamoring to purchase new homes with reports of bidding wars breaking out. But like a cowboy trying to control wild horses, the banking industry keeps pulling back on the reins creating an artificial shortage by allowing inventory to creep out of the shadows at a pace that allows them to drive up prices.

Just like the banks that have, for years, figured out ways to line their pockets with cash on the backs of the American public, thieves like the ones that made off with all of that ATM cash, will find more sophisticated ways to steal. And, perhaps next time, like the banks, they will be able to get away with it.

Real estate and foreclosure defense attorney, Roy Oppenheim left Wall Street for Main Street, founding Oppenheim Law along with his wife Ellen in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He also is vice president of Weston Title and creator of the South Florida Law Blog, named the best business and technology blog by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Follow Roy on Twitter at @OpLaw or like Oppenheim Law on Facebook.

S. Fla falls to third in national foreclosure rankings. Lenders must prove they can foreclose before filing and some say bill restricts due-process rights.

South Florida has relinquished its ranking as the nation’s top spot for foreclosures.

After posting the No. 1 foreclosure rate for two consecutive months, the metro area covering Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties fell to third in April, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

One in every 269 homes in the tri-county region was in some stage of foreclosure last month, RealtyTrac said. Akron, Ohio, ranked first, at one in 211 homes, and Ocala was second at one in 225 homes.

The Irvine, Calif.-based listing firm monitors public records for three types of foreclosure filings: new cases, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.

South Florida had 9,127 total filings in April, up slightly from a year earlier, but new cases declined by 35 percent, said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac.

“It appears that lenders have caught up with these delayed foreclosures,” he said. “Banks are pushing through the backlog, so we’re getting closer to seeing a resolution with these distressed homes.”

Foreclosures mounted across the country during the housing bust. But some lenders held back on filings starting in late 2010 over concerns about possible paperwork errors.

While Florida last month had the nation’s second-highest foreclosure rate, after Nevada, filings are down sharply across the Sunshine State since the 2009 peak, Blomquist said.

Florida had the top foreclosure rate for six months in a row until being surpassed by Nevada in March.

More than 24,600 Florida homes were in the foreclosure process last month, down slightly from a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac.

It takes an average of 893 days to complete a foreclosure in Florida, the third-longest time in the nation, after New York (1,089 days) and New Jersey (1,002), RealtyTrac said.

Florida lawmakers have passed a bill that would speed foreclosures, forcing homeowners to respond more quickly to filings and giving homeowners’ associations more power in the process.

Gov. Rick Scott still must review the legislation, which also requires lenders to prove they have the right to foreclose before they file a case and reduces the amount of time banks can recover a mortgage deficiency from five years to one.

“There is so much in the bill to like,” said Donna DiMaggio Berger, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer for homeowners’ associations. “Our fingers are crossed.”

Opponents say the bill restricts homeowners’ due-process rights. “It creates a presumption of guilt on the homeowner,” said Roy Oppenheim, a foreclosure defense lawyer in Weston.

Much like the banking industry in the US, the Recent tragedy in Bangladesh is “Too Big To Fail”

What do the recent tragedy in Bangladesh and the state of this country’s banking industry have in common? At first blush you might say nothing, but scratch just below the surface and you will see there are many parallels.

First Bangladesh – which we all know by now is a corrupt country being run by an ineffective government where rich factory owners sit in Parliament thumbing their collective noses at building codes that no one enforces.

Then, there are the “too big to fail” banks whose CEOs know that, by virtue of their size, the government won’t let them fail for fear they will, just like the garment factory in Bangladesh, come crashing down taking the innocent with them.

Last month’s accident, which killed more than 1,000, isn’t the first one involving garment factory workers. Still, the Bangladesh government has done little to protect those who are just squeaking out a living in what’s estimated to be a $20 billion industry that accounts for more than 75 percent of the country’s exports.

Why are these things allowed to happen? The answer is simple – much like the banking industry in the U.S., the garment industry in Bangladesh is too big to fail.

But the tide may be turning, both in Bangladesh and in the U.S.

In Bangladesh there’s been a groundswell of protests with factories being burned to the ground, and demands for regulation. Those demands, which not only are being heard overseas, but also in this country where many retailers rely on those factories for cheap labor, may serve as a bellwether for the future. In the wake of massive public outcry some retailers are scrambling to respond. But for those who died, it’s too little, too late.

It’s not much different for the banking industry. While no lives have been lost as a direct result of the banks’ committing fraud, many people’s lives have been financially ruined.

In the U.S., efforts have been made in the past to rein in banks with half-baked attempts at regulation that failed miserably in Congress. But that may be about to change. Last month Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Louisiana Republican David Vitter introduced the “Terminating Bailouts for Taxpayer Fairness Act of 2013 Act.”

Instead of cutting banks down in size, it requires that those banks with more than $500 billion in assets maintain higher capital reserves than they have to right now. That basically means they have to have more money in their coffers to ensure they are financially sound, serving as a buffer against any future loses. The idea is to create a more level playing field between the Wells Fargo and Bank of Americas of the world and smaller, less powerful financial institutions.

If the bill passes, and that’s a big if, many of the large banks likely would divest themselves of assets and shrink to a size that would not require them to hold additional capital.

Some suggest the groundswell of anti-big-bank sentiment of the last year may be enough for the legislation to pass, while others believe the banks still have enough power to hold off such legislation.

Regardless of whether this piece of legislation passes, one thing is for sure, the tide is turning and too-big-to-fail U.S. banks and the Bangladesh garment factories are going to have a hard time justifying their existence in the future.

Roy Oppenheim is Florida’s leading real estate and foreclosure defense attorney. He left Wall Street for Main Street and, in 1989, founded Oppenheim Law , Weston Title and the South Florida Law Blog with his partner and wife, Ellen. His entrepreneurial spirit and passion for helping to defend homeowners’ led Roy to start “In the Trenches” where he speaks out for the people and their constitutional rights. Prominently known as a legal blogger and often quoted in the media, Roy can be found in the newsroom on Twitter at @OpLaw and on Facebook.

Foreclosure activity reached 6-year low – near the beginning of the nation’s foreclosure crisis when the housing bubble burst.

Foreclosure activity in April fell to its lowest level in 74 months, but action is ramping up in some states, says a national foreclosure tracker.

In April, one of every 905 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing, market watcher RealtyTrac says. That was the lowest level since February 2007 — near the beginning of the nation’s foreclosure crisis — and down 23% from a year ago.

But foreclosure activity is increasing in some states where legal procedures and new laws to protect homeowners had slowed down foreclosures.

For example, in 26 states where foreclosures mostly go through the courts, scheduled foreclosure auctions in April were up 31% from a year ago to a 30-month high, RealtyTrac says. The auction is where the bank most often reclaims a foreclosed home.

The increase in scheduled auctions indicates that mortgage servicers are “serious about actually foreclosing,” says RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist.

Two states where courts approve foreclosures are Florida and New Jersey. In Florida, one of the states hardest hit by foreclosures, scheduled foreclosure auctions were up 55% in April vs. a year ago. In New Jersey, they increased 91%.

In both states, foreclosures slowed dramatically several years ago after allegations surfaced that many cases were moving through the courts without proper documentation.

Since then, many states have imposed new rules and oversight that slowed the process.

Now, “things are moving quickly again,” says Florida foreclosure defense attorney Roy Oppenheim.

He says many older cases lingering in the courts may still have documentation problems but new cases are moving faster.

Evidence of that can be seen in California, where RealtyTrac data shows foreclosure starts rose 13% in April from March.

California foreclosures don’t go through the courts. But a new law this year gave homeowners more protections. Among other things, it prevents lenders from moving ahead with foreclosures while homeowners pursue loan modifications.

After the law took effect, foreclosure starts hit a 90-month low in California, RealtyTrac says. They’ve been trending back up as mortgage servicers adjust to the new rules, Blomquist says.

The prospect of more foreclosure inventory hitting the market is no longer the threat that it was, real estate experts say.

With tight inventory in many of the nation’s housing markets, Realtors want more homes to sell.

Lenders, too, may see reduced losses given higher home prices, which were up 10.5% year-over-year in March, CoreLogic says.

Lenders “want to get these (foreclosures) through now because the values are up,” Oppenheim says.

Even if foreclosure activity speeds up in some states, it will be years before states clear their foreclosure pipelines.

In March, more than 5.6% of home loans were in foreclosure in the judicial foreclosure states vs. 1.7% of home loans in non-judicial foreclosure states, according to mortgage tracker Lender Processing Services.

Before the foreclosure crisis, a 0.5% ratio was more the norm, LPS says.

Real estate attorney and foreclosure defense attorney, Roy Oppenheim left Wall Street for Main Street, founding Oppenheim Law along with his wife Ellen in 1989 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is vice president of Weston Title and creator of the South Florida Law Blog, named the best business and technology blog by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Follow Roy on Twitter at @OpLaw or like Oppenheim Law on Facebook.

A foreclosure bill (House Bill 87) that’s awaiting the governor’s signature passed in the Florida Legislature in the last days of the session. Opponents argued the legislation was all about fast-tracking foreclosures with minimal judicial review. The amendment calls for reducing the number of hearings and the time a homeowner has to fight a foreclosure. A homeowner would have up to 45 days to build a defense before a key hearing to determine if a case should move forward or the lender should take the house back.

“People are going to have to move very quickly,” Weston foreclosure defense attorney Roy Oppenheim said. “It is going to put more burden on people to get lawyers. This is going to help my practice but hurt the homeowner.”

The legislation is retroactive, so it would apply to hundreds of thousands of pending cases. Oppenheim wonders if Scott would accept retroactivity. The governor cited a retroactivity clause as his reason for vetoing a bill that would have dramatically changed the state’s alimony law.

The foreclosure bill authorizes the hiring of retired judges to deal with the case backlog now gripping the state’s trial court system. That worries Oppenheim, who argues the specially appointed judges won’t be accountable to the electorate so nothing could stop them from ruling based on political favoritism.

“They can do whatever they want in the speedy trial,” he said. “It is going to become a mockery of our constitutional system.”

The bill requires lenders to produce a mortgage note or sworn evidence showing they are the holder of the note at filing. Oppenheim said that rule could give the defense attorney early ammunition to prove the plaintiff isn’t the note holder and isn’t entitled to foreclose. He said foreclosures often involve securitized trusts as holder of the mortgage. Yet many times the mortgage was not deposited into the trust at the appropriate time, which negates a trust’s right to foreclose.

Roy Oppenheim is Florida’s leading real estate and foreclosure defense attorney. He left Wall Street for Main Street and, in 1989, founded Oppenheim Law , Weston Title and the South Florida Law Blog with his partner and wife, Ellen. His entrepreneurial spirit and passion for helping to defend homeowners’ led Roy to start “In the Trenches” where he speaks out for the people and their constitutional rights. Prominently known as a legal blogger and often quoted in the media, Roy can be found in the newsroom on Twitter at @OpLaw and on Facebook.