FDP: Pam Bondi perfects her tan while you home goes into foreclosure

Pam Bondi, lame Florida attorney general

NOV 07, 2011 BLOG

As foreclosure rates rise under her watch, the St. Petersburg Times profiles how AG Pam Bondi has been spending her weekends boating, commuting home and wedding planning.

The article comes as Indian River County foreclosures jumped nearly 150-percent between February and August. More below.

Foreclosures in area surging under State Attorney General Pam Bondi

Indian River County foreclosures jumped nearly 150 percent between February, when 50 houses were taken back by banks, and August, when there were 121 final judgments of foreclosure. Numbers stayed high in September and October, with more than 100 foreclosures per month.

The increase coincides with the tenure of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has been widely criticized for firing attorneys in her office who aggressively went after law firms engaged in allegedly fraudulent foreclosure practices.

Countywide, 1,127 homes were in some stage of foreclosure at the end of October, according to RealtyTrac, the leading online marketplace for foreclosures. . .

The dramatic increase in final judgments of foreclosure in the county is part of a statewide trend that includes a 200-percent increase in bank repossessions in Miami-Dade County, where more than 25,000 homes are in the foreclosure pipeline.

“Banks are finally working through the problems associated with “robo-signing” that came to light last fall,” says Clay Collins, a loan officer at CenterState Bank. “There were extreme abuses in the foreclosure process, including fake signatures on documents and lawyers showing up in court to repossess homes without being able to prove ownership. Judges starting kicking them out of court. Banks had to go back and redo their whole process.”

In 2010, then Attorney General Bill McCollum launched investigations into allegations of unfair and deceptive actions by eight Florida law firms handling foreclosure cases, stating in a press release that “thousands of final judgments of foreclosures against Florida homeowners may have been the result of improper actions of the law firms under investigation.”

According to McCollum, “because many mortgages have been bought and sold by different institutions  multiple times, key paperwork involved in the process to obtain foreclosure judgments is often missing. On numerous occasions, allegedly fabricated documents have been presented to the courts to obtain final judgments against homeowners.”

McCollum’s actions were part of a nationwide trend that forced big banks to suspend foreclosures in so-called “judicial states” where the process is overseen by courts.

Foreclosures, often with false or faulty documents, continued in states where courts do not review paperwork presented by banks and their lawyers.

In Florida, The Law Offices of David J. Stern, which had more than 100,000 foreclosure cases in the pipeline last fall, was forced to shut down its foreclosure business in March as a result of McCollum’s investigation, and banks statewide pulled back from their allegedly fraudulent practices.

Pam Bondi, former Fox news analyst,  then was elected attorney general, taking office on Jan. 4, and the trend reversed.

According to numerous press reports, Bondi maintains she is pursuing bad actors in the foreclosure process but she has been harshly criticized by consumer groups and state lawmakers for actions that seem to indicate the opposite.

In May, June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards, state lawyers who led foreclosure fraud investigations under McCollum, were forced to resign from their posts in the Fort Lauderdale economic crimes bureau.
The two had received positive performance reviews from McCollum and were known for aggressive, effective action against shady foreclosure lawyers.

The White House Blog: Weekly wrap Up for week of October 4th, 2010:

Posted by Kori Schulman on October 9, 2010 at 8:25 AM EDT

At the first ever White House Summit on Community Colleges, Dr. Jill Biden and President Obama emphasize the importance of providing all students access to a quality higher education. Not to be missed: A video featuring community college grads, including Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and, yes, even Billy Crystal. http://wh.gov/3D4

West Wing Week: "A Farewell to Rahm" Video: http://wh.gov/3Dx

Notable Number: 64,000. More on the employment situation in September: http://wh.gov/3bc

Approved: One week after President Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act, nearly 2,000 small business owners who had been waiting for loans are approved and will soon have loan funds – totaling nearly $1 billion – in hand. http://wh.gov/3YQ

The White House Goes Solar: As we move toward a clean energy economy, the White House is leading by example. Energy Secretary Chu announces, “by the end of this spring, there will be solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House.” http://huff.to/c7sZtb

Epic Tweet: NASA: Hubble Space Telescope vs asteriod. Cosmic battle? http://go.usa.gov/ag0

Video: Elizabeth Warren, who’s standing up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, talks transparency on PBS news hour, “This is about making sure that families have the power to make good decisions, that they can see the contracts, they can see what the stuff costs, and they can get a competitive market to start working for them.” http://to.pbs.org/aAgCYP

Take it from Abe: Administrator Craig Fugate with Nationals racing president Abe share simple steps to save lives during Fire Prevention Week. http://bit.ly/cBVbpp

Not Signing It: President Obama will not sign H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer explains: http://wh.gov/3T1

Rightardia read on the Huffinton Post today that the Obama adminstation may work with banks to freeze forsclosures. What an excellent idea! the Bank of America has already stopped forclosures at its banks.

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Foreclosure Fraud seminar in Pinellas County

 Protect yourself from Foreclosure Fraud.

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The Aftermath of the Bush Ownership Society: More Weigh Walking Away From Mortgages

NYTimes.com| Published: February 2, 2010
By DAVID STREITFELD

In 2006, Benjamin Koellmann bought a condominium in Miami Beach. By his calculation, it will be about the year 2025 before he can sell his modest home for what he paid. Or maybe 2040.

Benjamin Koellmann paid $215,000 for his apartment in Miami Beach in 2006, but now units are selling in foreclosure for $90,000. “There is no financial sense in staying,” he said.

New research suggests that when a home’s value falls below 75 percent of the amount owed on the mortgage, the owner starts to think hard about reneging on a home loan.

“People like me are beginning to feel like suckers,” Mr. Koellmann said. “Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?”

This is After three years of plunging real estate values, after the bailouts of the bankers and the revival of their million-dollar bonuses, after the Obama administration’s loan modification plan raised the expectations of many but satisfied only a few.

In a situation without precedent in the modern era, millions of Americans are in this bleak position. Whether, or how, to help them is one of the biggest questions the Obama administration confronts as it seeks a housing policy that would contribute to the economic recovery.

“We haven’t yet found a way of dealing with this that would, we think, be practical on a large scale,” the assistant Treasury secretary for financial stability, Herbert M. Allison Jr., said in a recent briefing.

The number of Americans who owed more than their homes were worth was virtually nil when the real estate collapse began in mid-2006, but by the third quarter of 2009, an estimated 4.5 million homeowners had reached the critical threshold, with their home’s value dropping below 75 percent of the mortgage balance.

They are stretched, aggrieved and restless. With figures released last week showing that the real estate market was stalling again, their numbers are now projected to climb to a peak of 5.1 million by June — about 10 percent of all Americans with mortgages.

“We’re now at the point of maximum vulnerability,” said Sam Khater, a senior economist with First American CoreLogic, the firm that conducted the recent research. “People’s emotional attachment to their property is melting into the air.”

Suggestions that people would be wise to renege on their home loans are at least a couple of years old, but they are turning into a full-throated barrage. Bloggers were quick to note recently that landlords of an 11,000-unit residential complex in Manhattan showed no hesitation, or shame, in walking away from their deeply underwater investment.

See the rest of the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/business/03walk.html

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St. Petersburg Times: Florida lawmakers may pass bill that will boot people out of their homes in 90 days

By James Thorner, Times Staff Writer, Friday, January 29, 2010

If bankers get their way, Floridians facing foreclosure could be kicked out of their homes in as little as three months. Just what the citizens of Florida need in these hard times.

The Florida Bankers Association, the 400-member-strong lenders' lobby, has presented state legislators with a bill to upend decades of Florida law and establish "non-judicial" foreclosures in Florida by July 1.

What's a non-judicial foreclosure? Banks would accelerate foreclosures against defaulting homeowners by bypassing the courts. Judges would no longer rule on foreclosure cases.

Some states — 37 in fact — already grant that fast-track foreclosure authority, including California, Georgia, Alabama and Texas. But Florida, with its plethora of vacation and retiree homes, has always been big on homeowner rights.

If you're a financially strapped Florida homeowner — 62,719 Tampa Bay properties got foreclosure notices last year — the 53-page bill contains worrisome signs:

• Non-judicial foreclosures must conclude in no less than three months and no more than a year. Most Florida foreclosures take a year to 18 months to work through the courts these days, longer if a lawyer fights a successful rear guard action. In 90 days banks can theoretically auction the home out from under you.

• The Florida Supreme Court's newly endorsed mandatory mediation for lenders and homeowners would effectively go bye-bye. The bill provides only for informal meetings between creditors and debtors.

• Even after homeowners are evicted, banks can still pursue them for unpaid mortgage debt. But banks will waive that right if homeowners avoid trashing or stripping the house before the new owner takes over.

The bankers association has titled the bill The Florida Consumer Protection and Homeowner Credit Rehabilitation Act. Association president Alex Sanchez views the bill as a way to break a foreclosure crisis partly caused by mortgage fraud. It should be titled The Florida Bank Protection and Homeowner 90-day Foreclosure Act.

Here is a list of innocents the bankers aim to help: neighbors annoyed by abandoned houses next door; condo associations pursuing dues from properties in legal limbo; cities grappling with urban blight; and judges overloaded with thousands of foreclosure cases. Who are these Republicans kidding?

"We don't want the property. We're not into the property management business," Sanchez said of bankers. "We want to get a property out of the courts and sold to a productive Florida family.''

"Productive' is the conservative buzz word for people who are affluent.

Finalizing a foreclosure is time-consuming and expensive. The longer a property lingers in the courts, the longer banks get no mortgage income from the property. One Tampa mortgage banker revealed this month that each foreclosure can cost lenders an additional $30,000 in legal fees.

The law would apply to foreclosures after July 1, not old cases already in the courts. Kristopher Fernandez, a Tampa foreclosure attorney, blames the banks themselves for much of the judicial foot dragging.

source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/florida-bankers-move-to-dramatically-speed-up-the-foreclosure-process/1069024

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Newsy: Pending home sales drop 16 per cent

How did this happen? Possibly the renewal of the federal $8000 tax cut caused some home buyers to pause.

Rightard Whitey, our political editor, has been helping one of his sons purchase a home. He discovered that purchasing a short sale is difficult and takes months. Many relators won't even show short sales.

A short sales allows a home owner to sell property for less than the loan amount with bank permission. Instead of a 7 year credit black mark, the home owner only takes a three year hit on their credit with a short sale.

Foreclosures have similar problems. Rightard Whiteys' son made three offers on a home to a bank on one foreclosed property. The bank rejected all three offers claiming it had cash offers. The property is still on the market.

In addition, many of the banks are expecting the market to recover and hope to make higher profits once the economy improves. One relator said that the Bank of America removed millions of dollars of foreclosed property off of its books before the end of the year to make profitability look better.

It appears that banks are sitting on property. The federal government may need to put pressure on the banks to start selling this abandoned property. In Florida it is hard to buy a home because of the banks are not motivated to sell homes they own and even less motivated to provide home loans.

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