Florida Governor Rick Scott may have just one more day to veto Florida's big-bank friendly foreclosure act, HB 87. Nearly 1,200 Floridians have signed the Veto Florida's Foreclosure Act Petition, despite indifferent coverage by Florida's mainstream media. We would know the exact deadline required for the governor's veto if HB 87 appeared on the governor's live legislative action web page. For some reason, it's not there. (Image)
HB
87 speeds up the Florida's
Why do Banks Want a Friendly Foreclosure Bill in Florida?
Notorious bank robber, Willie Sutton, had the answer when asked why he robbed banks: "Because that's where the money is."* Florida led the nation in completed foreclosures for April 2012 through March 2013 (CoreLogic). There were 103,000 foreclosures for this period representing 9.7% of Florida's active mortgages or 28 mortgages for each completed foreclosure. California, with twice Florida's population, had 83,000 foreclosures for the same period or 62 mortgages for each foreclosure.
The total property value of Florida's 4.2 million mortgages is $790 billion.
Florida is where the action is if you're a major mortgage lender with bad paper you should never have issued.
More Foreclosures, Faster, in a Bank Friendly State
HB 87 enhances already huge legal advantages the banks have when they move in for the kill at foreclosure time.
Palm Beach, Florida attorney Dustin A. Zacks recently outlined the bank friendly legal and regulatory climate in Florida in a Cleveland Law Review article aptly titled Robo Litigation
. Meticulously documented, the
David J. Stern,
the poster boy for shady foreclosure lawyers, took full advantage of
the economic crisis and the exploding foreclosure market to build an
immensely profitable legal practice and processing subsidiary. At its
peak, the Stern firm handled 70,000 foreclosures
in 2009. Clients included
Stern's list of bent practices includes robosigning, a process in which legal affidavits attesting to the truth of foreclosure documents are signed by someone other than the required signatory (e.g., a temp instead of a bank officer), with no knowledge of the contents, and submitted without notarization. A notarized, legitimate signature represents the essential foundation for bank claims to a property during a hearing in foreclosure courts.
For the non-lawyers among us, knowingly submitting false documentation to a court sounds like fraud. Few of the banks and lawyers involved have been charged with fraud when robosigning fraud became known. That's the tell that lets us know just how rigged the system is in favor of the big banks and other lenders.
In 2002, there were serious concerns about the way Stern's firm did business. As Zacks documents, the Florida Bar investigated the allegations and then allowed Stern to agree to a relatively minor violation of legal conduct. His punishment was a public reprimand. The Florida Bar "did not follow through on its original suspicions" regarding: "acts contrary to honesty and justice; collecting excessive fees; making false statements or allowing witnesses to make false statements""
In this and other challenges to Stern's practices, the state courts, including the Florida Supreme Court, gave Stern a pass and kept him in business to achieve his crowning glory, massive robosigning resulting in the wrongful loss of homeowner properties.
By 2011, Sterns was fired by Fannie Mae, Citibank and his other big customers as the United States Congress started asking why anyone would do business with Sterns in the first place.
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