The following article was written by Paul Owers in the Sun Sentinel and republished in the South Florida Law Blog with Roy Oppenheim.
Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill Friday designed to speed up foreclosures
HB 87 requires homeowners to respond more quickly to foreclosure
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jack Latvala and Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, also requires lenders to have their paperwork in order before filing a foreclosure complaint. And it cuts the time period in which banks can seek a deficiency judgment against homeowners
“Florida’s housing market is important to our economy’s continuous recovery and this bill will aid in that effort by placing abandoned homes, caught up in the foreclosure backlog, back onto the market,” Scott wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Kenneth Detzner.
But Roy Oppenheim, a foreclosure defense lawyer based in Weston, blasted the law.
He said it places a bigger burden on judges and hurts the due process rights of homeowners, forcing them to prove in their initial court pleadings that they don’t deserve to lose the properties.
“The legislature stuck its nose into the judicial branch unconstitutionally and improperly,” Oppenheim said.
Defense lawyers are expected to challenge the law in court.
