South Florida Law Blog

Man I just love it when the banks eat their own! It’s even better when they start using MY arguments to do it. The very same arguments I’ve used to defend my clients. The essential problem is this, securitized trusts, the ones your homes were bought and sold into, weren’t always mortgage-backed! I’ve long had questions about the validity of […]

Bill extends Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 I warned you earlier this month that if you’re considering a short sale, the time to get the ball rolling is now. That’s because the Mortgage Debt Relief Act, which was passed in 2007, is set to expire at the end of this year. If that happens you’ll have to pay taxes […]

Banks need to get their massive foreclosure backlog off the books. There are over 368,000 cases in Florida. I get that. Getting these properties into the hands of families who can afford them, that is what I want to see. It’s needed to jump start the economy, and no one wants to see the banks out of the neighborhoods more […]

Humpty Dumpty has had his great fall, thanks to an outstanding bankruptcy judge who has all but dismantled the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) thanks to his recent ruling.‪​‪ Last week New York Judge Robert Grossman ruled that all of MERS’ business practices are illegal. It’s a staggering blow to the banks and their endless efforts to circumvent due process. […]

If there was anything positive that came out of the prolonged discussions between the states and the banks on the mortgage servicing settlement, it was that banks were reluctant to go full steam ahead in the foreclosure process while talks were ongoing. But even before the settlement was announced, we saw signs that pointed to more foreclosures in 2012. According […]

The dust has finally settled on last week’s mortgage settlement. It dominated the news cycle once the details of the agreement broke. I spent the bulk of my day a week ago talking to the media and weighing in on it’s significance. But there is one clear question that I haven’t heard anyone been able to definitely answer yet. Has […]

Well what a wild week it has been. When we came to work on Monday we feared President Obama would put the housing crisis to bed without ever holding the banks’ feet to the fire. The settlement with the banks, which we have blogged about ad nauseam this week, seemed as sure as a chip-shot field goal. But thanks to […]

Leading up to the State of the Union, we heard a lot of chatter that a proposed $25 billion settlement with the banks would be a selling point in President Obama’s speech.And maybe it would have been, had President Obama delivered the State of the Union. But clearly the person we saw last night addressing Congress was candidate Obama, who […]