Litigation

FL Foreclosures-Only Courts Draw Scrutiny

By Peter Hardin

In Florida, a state that is setting record for foreclosures, new foreclosures-only courts are getting a workout and stirring controversy.

A lengthy New York Times article examines debate over the new courts, which are staffed by retired judges and intended to slash a foreclosures backlog by 62 percent in a year.

Some lawyers for borrowers in trouble say the judges are not impartial, and are so devoted to reducing the backlog that they’re favoring financial institutions before the courts.

“?You get a five-minute hearing. It?s a factory,” protested April Charney, a lawyer helping borrowers at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.

But Victor Tobin, chief judge in the 17th Judicial Circuit, disagreed. The district includes Broward County. ?There are more assets devoted to those three foreclosure divisions in Broward than to any other division in the building in terms of case managers and that sort of thing to help the general public,? he said. ?The people who come get fully, fully heard.?

Some law firms representing banks have been the subject of allegations of questionable practices, and state Attorney General Bill McCollum has announced an investigation of Florida’s three biggest foreclosure law firms representing lenders.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 06, 2010 (boomark / email).