By Toluse Olorunnipa, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau |
“A “faster foreclosures” proposal that sparked consumer outcry and protest last year has resurfaced in a more moderate form, with a new bill filed this week by Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples.
The bill, HB 87, offers a slew of changes to the civil procedures governing foreclosures in Florida, where home repossessions are on the rise again.
Most of the provisions are aimed at speeding up and cleaning up the foreclosure process, which takes more than 600 days to run its course in Florida.
“We need to make sure the process is as efficient as possible while at the same time giving the borrower their due process rights,” said Passidomo. “Unfortunately, if you don’t have an income or you can’t afford to pay anything, the property can’t just sit in limbo forever.”
The bill — which proposes strict paperwork requirements for lenders, fast-track foreclosure procedures and a shield against some thorny legal scenarios — comes at a time when banks are beginning to rev up their foreclosure machines again after a two-year lull.
Foreclosure filings in Florida jumped 20 percent in the last year, and the Sunshine State now has the nation’s highest foreclosure rate.
And even though the housing market is improving, there are plenty of foreclosures still set to take place in the coming years.
One in five mortgages in the state is currently delinquent, and more than half of those have not yet entered the foreclosure process, according to Lender Processing Services.
Lenders spent two years cooling down their home repossession machines after news surfaced in 2010 that bank employees had been rapidly filling out foreclosure paperwork without properly reviewing it.
The “robo-signing” scandal led to a landmark $25 billion national settlement between states and five major banks last year, clearing the way for a more streamlined foreclosure process.”