Posts Tagged ‘florida foreclsoure defense’

Roy Oppenheim on Talk Radio – Fashioning Your Own Foreclosure Bailout

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Last week was quite a week. I left Cambridge, MA, after visiting my daughter for the weekend and enjoying a little family rivalry at the Harvard – Princeton football game.

Roy Oppenheim on Randi Rhodes

Roy Oppenheim on Randi Rhodes

After a meeting in New York, I found out the nationally syndicated Randi Rhodes Show wanted me to make an appearance at 5 p.m. to discuss foreclosures and Oppenheim Law’s defense strategies. They would not let me use my cell phone for the interview, so I was expecting to have to talk from a pay phone in the middle of LaGuardia before my flight back to South Florida. Luckily, I found a quiet place and the interview was great.

We’ve included audio of the entire interview on the Oppenheim Law Facebook Fan Page for your listening pleasure, but here is a summary of my thoughts on the social stigma of foreclosure and how you can fashion your own bailout:

I believe the foreclosure epidemic has become so widespread and far-reaching that the stigma surrounding the issue is greatly reduced across the country.

“In FL alone we now have 26-28% who are behind or in foreclosure,” I said. “I think if you study social networks, you’ll see that foreclosures work like social networks. When you have someone who’s in foreclosure, the moral stigma is reduced because you have a sense of kinship.”

So in response to the enormity of the problem in South Florida, I explained that foreclosure defense needs to be looked at holistically, and homeowners need to take charge of understanding their legal rights and defending themselves.

(more…)

Deficiency Judgments “Are a Comin”… Say it “Ain’t So”:

Friday, September 11th, 2009

You can run but you can’t hide from Florida’s deficiency judgments….

While it’s now well accepted that 98% of Florida homeowners in foreclosure are just walking away and putting their head in the sand, it is now becoming apparent that while these folks can run, but they probably can’t hide.

Definition of a deficiency judgment according to Wikipedia:

A deficiency judgment is a judgment lien against a debtor, defendant or borrower whose foreclosure sale did not produce sufficient funds to pay the mortgage in full. This option may or may not be available to the lender, depending on whether they have made a recourse or nonrecourse loan.

Until now, there was some uncertainty whether the banks were going to pursue deficiency judgments from Florida homeowners. Well the evidence is becoming clear that many banks will pursue and ARE NOW pursuing these Florida judgments post-foreclosure.

For the uninitiated, in Florida and other “recourse” states, a Bank would be entitled to obtain a judgment against you for the difference between the mortgage amount and the value of the property. In other words, if your Florida real estate property is worth less than the mortgage the Bank can come after you for the difference. In non-recourse states, like California, the Banks can not do that. Florida is a recourse state and the Banks may have up to five years to bring the action. Although if the Bank doesn’t bring the action within one year after the Florida foreclosure sale, it can be argued that the Bank failed to diligently pursue the case and the Court “could” in theory dismiss the action for failure to prosecute. I say good luck on that one!

(more…)


PHP/MySQL Components, WordPress Plugins, and Technology Opinions at TravisWeston.com

Bad Behavior has blocked 2478 access attempts in the last 7 days.