Foreclosure Defense Causing Some South Florida Attorneys To Refocus Practices To Meet Increasing Demand?

In South Florida, The Miami Herald reports:

• As foreclosures continue to mount, borrowers who have run out of options are turning to attorneys to fight back -- and they're living mortgage-free for months in the process. Although the chances of ultimately keeping a foreclosed home are slim, for $1,500 to $3,000 some lawyers are offering to defend borrowers in court, causing the wheels of justice to turn more slowly. Duking it out can add months and sometimes years to a foreclosure process that in Florida already takes an average of seven months to complete.

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• Foreclosure defense is proving popular enough that some South Florida bankruptcy and real estate lawyers said they were refocusing their practices to meet the growing demand.

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• While a foreclosure may seem straightforward -- a borrower doesn't pay and the bank takes back the home -- lawyers say there are numerous ways to fight. One way is forcing the lender to prove it owns the debt behind the mortgage by producing a promissory note. A mortgage is a security instrument pledging property as collateral for a loan if a borrower defaults, but it is not the promissory note itself. As mortgages were bought, bundled and sold off to investors, notes got lost in the shuffle, landing in vaults or warehouses around the country. Physically retrieving them can be difficult and sometimes impossible.

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• Some lawyers also ask lenders to produce all the documents in a loan file, transcripts of phone conversations with the borrower and copies of written correspondence, which can take up to a year or more to compile. Several businesses are involved, and some may have gone out of business.

For more, see Foreclosure defense buys homeowners time (Homeowners facing foreclosure are hiring lawyers to defend them in court against their lenders, during which time they can stay in their homes without paying a cent) (if link expires, try here).

In a related story, see "Florida Attorneys Saving Homes" Sets Up Hotline To Place Homeowners Struggling With House Payments With Free Lawyers.

For other posts that reference the failure of some mortgage lenders and their attorneys to file the required loan documents when starting foreclosures, Go Here, Go Here, Go Here and Go Here. missing mortgage foreclosure docs gamma