South Florida Law Blog

It was 4:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving eve at my office, and I was enjoying a moment of quiet phones as I cleared my desk and my mind. The one call that did come was from The Wall Street Journal Real Estate reporter James (Bob) R. Hagarty. He was working on a story about homeowners who are creating their own bailouts, […]

For almost three years now I have talked about the idea that the American Dream of homeownership was really only a mirage. While policymakers had good intentions, homeownership has in many instances become the American Nightmare for numerous systematic reasons including: greed, lax government regulation and pure fraud. In a wonderful front page analysis in today’s Wall Street Journal, they […]

WSJ reporter, James Hagerty, arguably one of the best reporters covering the real estate crisis and with whom I speak with from time-to time wrote a great article this morning concerning professional investors who are going to auction, fixing up the houses and then flipping them for a profit. (Also take the time to look at the slides and related […]

I am fortunate that I frequently get forwarded items that are meant for the blog. This particular item comes from a close relative who I know does not want their name disclosed. So I say thank you and encourage all my readers to continue to send me material that you would like me to share and let me know if […]

While mortgage modifications continue to be a huge problem for the Obama administration, they seem to be following the advice of the geeks at the Federal Reserve and from the folks in the “Trenches“. (See WSJ Article). You are eligible to do a short sale if (1) you have a government backed loan (Fannie, Freddie, VA, etc.), (2) its your […]

Unbelievable: Attorney Geoff Sherman of Oppenheim Law just got a bank’s foreclosure summary judgment denied! Why: because the Bank said they had lost the note when they filed the original complaint, yet 16 days after they filed the complaint in March they had received an assignment of the mortgage and Note from the old lender. Thus, when the new bank […]

Why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Banks Prefer…Short Sales It should come as no surprise that only 12.4 percent of Florida borrowers who are at least two months behind on mortgage payments have entered into trial loan modifications through the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program. The first date For many who tried to get a Florida loan modification, the process […]

As we are always trying to build our arsenal in terms of foreclosure defense strategies, we have constantly said time is on your side and that the cavalry will arrive. So here we have a new government program that may be of interest to all of us by allowing homeowners to stay in their property as a tenant as opposed […]