Foreclosure Dismissal – Did Not See It Coming
Generally you can see a foreclosure happening from a long way off. You have not made a payment in a while. You get phone calls and notices by mail from your lender. Then one day a man comes to your door to serve you with a foreclosure lawsuit. Usually that is not a big surprise to a homeowner. But a Foreclosure Defense can be a shock to a lender. Most Florida foreclosures go through our court system unopposed. That means there are a lot of new lawyers representing lenders on cases they expect to get rubber stamped through the process. It does not take a lot of experience to send a foreclosure prosecution through the legal procedure if no one is going to fight it. Most of the prosecutors do not appear in person—they are just phoning it in, literally. One such attorney recently made his telephonic appearance with a Motion for Summary Judgment dated 2009. Somebody’s house was at stake, but the lender’s attorney had not bothered to file an updated Motion. Judge, why are we here? Case dismissed. With a three-year-old Motion for Summary Judgment, a Foreclosure Defense attorney has to wonder what that case is doing in [...] Read More
Nickels & Dimes of Small Claims Court
If the debt amount is under $5,000, the case goes to Small Claims Court, land of Debt Buyers who pay a nickel to get two dimes back. It may seem like small change, but it really adds up, especially if you are on a fixed income. Sometimes it pays to ask questions. For the Debt Buyers, collection is a numbers game. They pay four or five cents on the dollar to purchase delinquent accounts, and they hope to get back twenty cents on the dollar—that is a good return, especially in bulk—but Consumer Rights can get shortchanged. Debt Buyers deal in bulk and often their cases are not well-built, but if their claims go uncontested—nobody verifies the Debt Buyer is the proper party to whom the debt is owed, and nobody verifies the amount owed—then the checks and balances are tipped toward the payment only side. Yes, everyone should pay their debts, and yes, Debt Buyers should have their cases in order. If the Debt Buyer does not have all their documentation, then the Judge can dismiss the case. If the case is dismissed without prejudice, that does not mean the matter is gone. Dismissal Without Prejudice means the Debt [...] Read More