South Florida Law Blog

With the presidential race entering its final stretch and with the employment figures remaining effectively flat, one would think that the housing crisis would have already been front and center by now. As I have said numerous times every economic recovery since the Depression has been led by the housing sector. But only now do we have a fuller picture […]

This commentary was originally published on Yahoo! Homes and is being redistributed on South Florida Law Blog with their permission. Huh? What do “Obamacare” and the foreclosure crisis have to do with each other? Simply put, the legal debate over Obamacare largely centered on the individual mandate, a law that would require people to buy health insurance whether they wanted […]

The clock may have run out on this year’s Super Bowl (Way to go Giants!!) but there’s still a few minutes left in this year’s REAL grudge match, the Banks vs. the Attorney Generals. It’s 4th and Inches, the score is tied, and it would be nice to avoid overtime. Today we could learn whether the much-discussed robo-signing settlement with […]

Florida Homeowner Slams Judge Hearing 300 Cases In the absolutely-not-surprising-in-any-way file, one of the 300 homeowners who went before a Seminole County judge during a three day session this week thinks he was treated flimsily by the court. Blaize McMonagle told ABC News that Judge Alan Dickey sped through his case without being given the chance to defend himself. Dickey […]

We’ve all been reading with horror about the developing situation in Italy with the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that capsized last Friday, killing several people. What really caught our attention is the actions of the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino, who reportedly abandoned ship in the middle of the evacuations. He’s been blamed for causing the tragedy by recklessly taking […]

Three cheers for Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC and a true advocate for the little guy, who resigned this week on July 8th. She fought for what is right for the homeowner, the depositor and the taxpayer. Shelia was probably the only person in the Obama administration who really “got it.” As a financial regulator, she understood […]

As Florida real estate slowly pulls itself out of the foreclosure fraud files; there is finally a government agency standing up to the bully of banks! The IRS. Last week, Reuters News Service published an exclusive article exposing yet another way the banks have been defrauding taxpayers. This time it wasn’t directly through improper lending practices, robo-signing or bad assignments […]

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 […]