Criminal Mischief
Criminal mischief becomes a felony at $1,000. Criminal Mischief is when you damage someone’s property on purpose. If that damage exceeds $1,000, you can be looking at probation or more than one year in a commitment facility. Trick-or-treating is tough if you are behind bars. Egging a car can be a felony. If the paint on the car is damaged, the cost could be more than $1,000 to repair. Thus Halloween high jinks can result in jail time. For a guide about the law for youth and parents, go to http://www.sjso.org/media/Know%20the%20Law%20Booklet.pdf. Ignorant does not equal innocent, even if you are underage. Have a Safe and Happy Halloween. Read More
Foreclosure Trick Or Treat
You can turn off the porch light and bring in the candy…that is not going to stop the Process Server from knocking on your door. He does not want candy corn and tootsie rolls. He just wants your autograph. The fastest way to economic recovery is to address the problem. Avoiding it prolongs the process and does not give you much control over the outcome. You can avoid dealing with the whole thing and probably lose your house…or you can learn about your legal options. Even if you owe money, you have rights and you have choices. A foreclosure defense can guide you toward informed decisions over the fate of your financial future. Home foreclosure is scary. Seek competent legal counsel to review your circumstances and help you pursue a strategy for the best benefit of you and your family. Relieve your fear of the unknown by finding out what legal options may be available to you in a foreclosure defense. Answer the door when the Process Server knocks, and get the ball rolling towards resolution. Read More
Foreclosure Defense: More Than Palliative Care
You could take two aspirin and call me in the morning…but I am not sure what that does for your foreclosure defense. In the end, you are going to lose your case, but the idea is to have an alternative in place by the time that happens. Sell your house in a Short Sale, get a Mortgage Modification, Refinance, or find Better Employment by the time the foreclosure eviction reaches you. Foreclosures do take time. The latest report puts the average foreclosure in Florida at 749 days…over two years. However, alternative resolutions take time too. Have you seen a Short Sale live up to its name in chronological brevity? The on-hold wait for a Mortgage Modification is measured in tree rings. You do not want to get a foreclosure judgment while listening for the next available loan representative. Foreclosure Defense keeps the Prosecution busy while you pursue a proactive strategy, one that will bring the best benefit to you and your family. You can wait your 749 days without morphine and the end will come. Or you can engage the process through a Foreclosure Defense and try to steer the outcome toward a less painful placement of your credit, shortening [...] Read More
Romantic Tragedy: Mandated Foreclosure Mediation
Never was a story of more woe than high unemployment and a housing market low. The Montagues and Capulets were better suited for harmony. Joblessness and depressed real estate make a marriage of poor economy. Verona did not boast one in every nine homes had foreclosure filings when Juliet met Romeo. Daggers and poison are not the high court’s preferred resolution to the modern foreclosure crisis…neither is court-mandated mediation according to a panel of Florida’s Supreme Court. Initiated two years ago, the mandated mediation program failed to provide incentive for lenders to send someone with authority to do more than modify the loan. Only one choice in mediation is not a true mediation. The program was implemented to help relieve the backlog of foreclosures crowding the Florida court system; however, mandated mediation became synonymous with a one-track result—modification—and did not allow for other possibilities, such as short sale. Foreclosure in Florida is a plague on 67,886 houses. Review of mandated mediation is one small step for Florida’s Supreme Court, and one giant leap for homeownerkind…hopefully. Mandated mediation is a romantic notion of getting a problem settled and relieving the backlog of Florida foreclosures, but it has the tragic reality of [...] Read More
Walking Upright through Foreclosure
Homeowner sapiens may be endangered. Just because you qualified for the loan and you bought the house does not mean you can afford to keep your dwelling. Property value has dropped while unemployment has risen, making shelter more challenging for the American Dream species. While there is plenty of habitat for Homeowner sapiens, fewer of this breed have the resources for it. Many of the species are ditching their tale of debt balance in a Short Sale, and evolving into Renter sapiens. This bi-pedal approach to walking upright away from negative equity usually puts the hominoid organism in a better credit position faster than if the foreclosure completes its life cycle within its human host. While cave dwelling has not been considered haute culture since Lascaux, rentals are better than night after night after night under the stars…especially when the stars are soggy. If the outdoor life does not appeal to you, then do not play with matches in a mobile home…and seek alternative solutions to a home foreclosure. Foreclosure Defense lays out the legal landscape of options and possible outcomes, giving large-brained hominids tools to decide what is best for their survival, and the benefit of their offspring. Read More
Short Sale Multitasking
The Loan Department does not know what the Legal Department is doing. They do not talk, which is why a short sale does not stop foreclosure proceedings. Your lender is multitasking. The Loan Department is negotiating with you on a short sale, while at the same time, the Legal Department is putting together a foreclosure case against you. The two Departments are in a race to see who can get the most value fastest. For the Lender, home foreclosure is just business. Whether the outcome is foreclosure or short sale, the Lender is trying to get the best for the least amount of time. For the Homeowner, foreclosure is personal…it is where he lives. A foreclosure defense may offer the Homeowner a fighting chance against the Lender. A foreclosure defense addresses the Legal Department, requesting that they prove their case; thereby, allowing time and opportunity for a short sale to go through with the Loan Department. The Lender has a whole staff of personnel, but the Homeowner is just one entity. A foreclosure defense offers the support to pursue an optimal outcome, and puts multitasking on the side of the Homeowner. Read More
Trick Or Treat
If I could predict the outcome of trials, then I would quit being a lawyer and go play Lotto. While no one cannot forecast what is going to happen in a home foreclosure case, a legal defense gives you possible outcomes, and alternative routes to pursue. You can dress up in a scary costume, but chances are, you are not going to frighten off the process server. If your house is haunted by foreclosure, the best you can do is seek the optimal benefit for you and your family. There are no free houses. Foreclosure defense is not about “winning” your case, but mitigating your loss. Sometimes there are no solutions. Sometimes “solutions” do not work. The same argument that works in one courtroom, may not affect the same outcome in front of a different judge. Foreclosure defense, however, gives you the knowledge to make informed decisions about your financial future. Though you cannot predict what is going to happen in a legal procedure, you know what the possibilities are, and the options you have to handle them. Have a Safe and Happy Halloween! Read More
Do Not Go Gentle Into Foreclosure
The answer is always ‘No’ if you do not ask. Are there options to foreclosure? Do I have rights even if I am behind on my mortgage payments? Foreclosure proceeds on a ‘Don’t ask—Don’t tell’ basis. If the homeowner does not ask, then the lender does not have to tell whether or not he has authority to foreclose…and the homeowner does not have the opportunity to pursue foreclosure alternatives. Homeowners have rights. Just because you are behind on payments does not mean foreclosure is your only option. Foreclosure Defense asks the Lender to prove his case. This has two positive results. 1. The Lender has to prove he has the right to foreclose. That is no small detail in the confusion of mortgage bundling in mortgage-backed securities. To attain the Lender’s proof also helps to keep the chain of ownership clean for future owners of the property. 2. While the Lender is busy proving his authority to foreclose, the Homeowner has the opportunity to purse alternative resolutions. Often a Short Sale is best for the universe. It gives the bank at least some money, it gets the homeowner out of an upside down situation, and it helps to maintain property [...] Read More
Sour Grapes on Home Foreclosure
Once upon a time there was a Homeowner who thought he was all that and a bag of chips. As soon as he had bought his home, he wanted good wines to serve, and no sooner had he bought a collection of good wines, than he decided to buy the vineyard next door and make his own wine. Though the Homeowner did not have a lot of money, he felt entitled to have the finest house and the finest things just because he was a homeowner. Alas, he did not make the closing on his yacht before his credit crashed, and then the Homeowner could not afford a “welcome” mat. The Homeowner began to reflect on his extravagant spending. He realized that though he could afford his house, these extra items were not something he could pay for. He felt ashamed of spending so far beyond his means. Not only did he fail to pay his debts on the wines and vineyard, he also discontinued making payments on his home mortgage. He was not upset to lose his wines or his vineyard, telling himself, “I am sure those were sour grapes anyway.” And he let his home go into foreclosure [...] Read More
Pay to Play?
In most rental eviction defenses, you have to pay to play. In other words, if you feel you are being wrongfully evicted, you have to deposit rent into the Registry of the Court so that your side will be heard. But that is not necessarily the case in the Fifth District. There are certain statutory prerequisites to a tenant eviction throughout the State of Florida. One of those is the Three Day Notice. Yet here in the Fifth District, if the landlord messes up the Three Day Notice, the Tenant does not necessarily have to pay rent to the Registry of the Court in order to launch a defense. Right now, this is unique to our District; however, it could go to the Florida Supreme Court to become a statewide rule. There are lots of ways a Landlord can mess things up in an eviction. Or he can play by the rules. You can learn more about Landlord/Tenant Law on this website. If you are going to play Landlord, play it right, or you could be the one to pay. Read More