Posts Tagged ‘South Florida’

South Florida Law Blog…En Espanol

Friday, June 22nd, 2012

SpanishSeeing as how Oppenheim Law is based in South Florida, we obviously have many spanish-speaking clients, and more than a few spanish-speaking employees.

In fact it was one of those employees, Natalia, who brought it to my attention that we are doing them a disservice by not directly speaking to them here. We already offer translation services for our clients, and it’s only fair we do the same for our readers.

So from here on out we will be translating selected blogs into Spanish. To the right of this post you will now see, under the heading “En Espanol”, a link to Blog Legal Del Sur De La Florida (literal translation: Legal Blog of South Florida).

In this newly-created section we will post translated versions of blogs that I have already published in English. Natalia has been kind enough to translate my last two blogs “An Open Letter to President Obama” and “Shaun Donovan, Refinancing and the 900 lb. Gorilla” into Espanol.

I do speak a few languages beyond English, but I couldn’t do this without my spanish-speaking staff’s help, so please tell them “Gracias” the next time you step in the office.

If you’re interested in receiving our Spanish blogs by email, we have created a Spanish-only newsletter, which you can subscribe to by clicking here.

As always, we are “En Las Trincheras” (In The Trenches), fighting for our clients.

Sincerely,

Roy Oppenheim

Foreclosure Defense Attorney Roy Oppenheim

‘Bad Neighbor Banks’ Take Hold In South Florida

Friday, May 4th, 2012

Fish-Eye Lens

  • Banks make bad neighbors.

It’s been one of my mantras for years, and it’s a statement that is again reverberating across the country thanks to The Sun-Sentinel’s 3-part series “Bad Neighbor Banks”.

Thanks to the Sentinel, 60 Minutes, and the National Fair Housing Alliance, we are seeing the hard data that back up my assertion that banks, once they foreclose and take control of a property, just leave them to rot.

The grass no longer gets cut,the garbage accumulates, and before too long you end up with widespread blight not just in urban neighborhoods, but suburbia as well.

It’s the reason why I fight so hard to keep people in their homes. You and I are just better off when you have homeowners, vested in their houses and the neighborhoods they live in, keeping up their homes.

In the Sun-Sentinel’s series there is example after example of banks not doing even the most basic of maintenance. And their argument is usually, ‘It’s not our job’.

A bank has no investment in the neighborhoods you live in, beyond their own bottom line, and the banks have all but admitted it.

“The bank itself has no economic interest or ownership stake in the properties,” a spokesman for Deutsche Bank told the Sun-Sentinel.

So I ask you again, why would you ever want a bank as a neighbor?

The numbers don’t lie. The Sun-Sentinel found 10,300 code violations in bank-owned homes in South Florida since 2007. In the cities they tracked 40 percent of bank-owned homes were cited last year.

So chances are you are living next to one of these eyesores. And I’m betting you’re not too happy about it.
(more…)

Eric Schneiderman: This Millennium’s Elliot Ness?

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

We here at the South Florida Law Blog decided to clock in a few hours this weekend, because if we didn’t we’d probably fall behind President Obama’s new man-in-the trenches Eric Schneiderman.

The New York Attorney General, only days into his appointment as the head of the newly-formed Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group has already issued subpoenas to 11 financial companies.

President Obama only announced this new investigative unit during Tuesday’s State of the Union, yet the “check”, or in this case the subpoena, is already in the mail.

If you were skeptical that Obama was still interested in the status-quo when it comes to the banks and doing business, may we present Exhibit A.

Eric Schneiderman is turning himself into a modern-day Elliot Ness.

You remember Ness don’t you?

The federal agent whose team of “Untouchables” couldn’t be bought off and helped bring down Al Capone?

Schneiderman too has the era of a man who will not be co-opted. If anyone can stay above the fray and not be reeled in by the banks and their money, he can.

Investigation Going After Cause of Housing Crisis

Schneiderman has stood up to the President before, openly opposing the settlement agreement that we here at the South Florida Law Blog have railed against. And now he is Obama’s point man for placing blame and creating accountability for causing the worst economic crisis in the US since the Depression.

Elliot Ness

The Huffington Post is reporting that outside of claims directly relating to robo-signing fiasco, the banks will not be released from the threat of prosecution for the vast majority of securities-related crimes.
(more…)

Foreclosure Mills, Bank Fraud and the Housing Market — 2011′s Top Headlines Pt. 2

Saturday, December 31st, 2011
Continuing our list here’s Pt. 2 of our Top 10 stories for 2011 —

As 2011 got underway we were presented with a fascinating yet disturbing report by the Florida Association of Court Clerks called “Unfair, Deceptive and Unconscionable Acts in Foreclosure Cases”. It brought these horrible practices into the harsh light of day.

“What we got from this is the state has had the opportunity to see where the laws have been broken,’ Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller Sharon Bock said at the time, “and frankly, it is in large part thanks to the work of the defense attorneys.

We cited April Charney from the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid and Peter Ticktin and many others wonderful attorneys who have taken bank officers’ depositions, challenged judges rulings and fought the good fight for the Florida homeowner.

#4 — Cracked! Humpty Dumpty, Chase and GMC, the Bank Fraud Foreclosure Crisis Continues to Fall!

Somewhere along the line, the overly ambitious bankers on Wall Street had the “great idea” of slicing and dicing the interest of the Promissory Note and literally severing it from your Mortgage. Why? Convenience,expediency, and, arguably, greed. And much like Humpty Dumpty after his great fall, the banks couldn’t bring the mortgages and their corresponding Notes all back together again. The banks were accused of fraud and perjury trying to do just that.

# 3 — Housing Market Poll: When Will Florida Recover?

If Americans are right, 2012 will finally be the magic year for the housing market. Over 2,000 adults were polled by Trulia and RealtyTrac , and the majority, 22 percent, said most Americans think the housing market will fully recover in the new year. A mere 10 percent thought a recovery would happen this year, while nearly a quarter of those surveyed predicted a bumpy road until 2015 and beyond.
(more…)


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

Bad Behavior has blocked 8300 access attempts in the last 7 days.