Matt Weidner – Fighting For The American People

Posts Tagged ‘Mediation Managers’

I am going to write a whole lot more about this later, but it is a HUGE statement that mediation is back up and running in Pinellas County.

I am convinced that his program CAN produce very, very high success rates…..if both sides start coming to the table and working the program.

Notice I said BOTH SIDES. Borrowers submitting docs and Lenders entering into real, substantive negotiations.

A revolution is coming and it might as well start in Pinellas County.  Part of the revolution is keeping people in homes….WHILE MAKING FAIR AND REASONABLE PAYMENTS.

No more vacant and abandoned homes. Cops, military, teachers…..bodies and families in homes, taking care of them, keeping power on, paying taxes and insurance.

The banking industry will thank us in the very near future.  From the press release:

CLEARWATER – Revisions to a previously mandated mediation program are targeted more directly at property owners who are most likely to benefit, while making the procedures more user-friendly and effective. The goal is to continue to efficiently move foreclosure cases through the courts of the Sixth Judicial Circuit, which serves Pasco and Pinellas counties.

Under a new Administrative Order signed today by Chief Judge Thomas McGrady, Mediation Managers, Inc. (MMI), which contracts to provide mediation services for foreclosure cases, will no longer automatically offer mediation in every case. “A lot of resources were being used ineffectively while trying to serve borrowers who have already abandoned their homes or recognize that they will be unable to reach an agreed-on plan that would allow them to keep their homes,” Judge McGrady said.

Under the new plan, mediation will automatically be offered in all residential foreclosure case in which:

• Defendants have been personally served with notice of the foreclosure action;

• Notice of foreclosure was by publication, and the defendant responded within 120 days of service;

I will no longer make efforts to locate every borrower (only those who meet the criteria above), and mediation will now be available on foreclosure actions involving non-homestead residential property. The program that the Florida Supreme Court suspended last month required the initiation of mediation for all homestead cases and required MMI to attempt to locate all defendants before a case could move forward.

 

The suspended program also required lenders to pay an up-front fee of $750 to MMI – a not-for-profit organization. Under the revised plan, MMI will receive no administrative fee, and its mediation fee is set at $225 an hour with a two-hour minimum. The fee will continue to be paid by the lender, but will be listed as costs in all settlements or final judgments. If more than two hours are required, fees will be split between lender and borrower.

 

Chief Judge McGrady said that the new plan eliminates requirements that tried to include all homestead foreclosure cases. “As it has always been, mediation will continue to be a resource that is available to anyone who wants to utilize it to settle civil court cases, including foreclosures,” McGrady said. “But now, we will be proactive in trying to get parties to mediate only when there appears to be hope of a homeowner saving their property from foreclosure action that was initiated during a hard time that they are working themselves out of. We all have had setbacks, and mediation is a tool for overcoming those setbacks.”

 

In mediation, a neutral third party such as MMI assists both sides to reach a settlement agreement that quickly brings the case to a conclusion, avoiding longer and more costly litigation in court. Such agreements could lead to modified payment plans, extended loan terms, sale of the property, returning the property without any further obligation on the loan, etc.  “It (mediation) allows both sides to mutually resolve their issues,” McGrady said, “while avoiding the expense and uncertainty of further litigation.”

He pointed out that in most cases financial institutions really don’t want to take possession of more properties, while mediated agreements provide time for hard-working property owners to get back on their feet.

In mid-2010, Sixth Circuit judges were dealing with approximately 33,000 open foreclosure cases. Mediation and a senior judges program have helped reduce the number of pending actions to less than 29,000. Last year, almost 10,000 new cases – 6,293 in Pinellas and 3,690 in Pasco – were filed. Judge McGrady said that while the new mediation plan will not automatically apply to previously filed cases, it gives the courts another tool to efficiently deal with the situation.

 

MMI was founded in 2010 by three local attorney/mediators, J. Richard Rahter, Jon C. Kieffer, and Jack L. Townsend, Sr. Kieffer and Rahter – the principal attorneys of Kieffer & Rahter, P.A. in St. Petersburg since 1985 – have been Florida Supreme Court-certified mediators for 22 years. Townsend, the principal attorney of Jack L. Townsend, Sr., P.A. in Tampa, has been providing mediation and arbitration services in the Tampa Bay area since 1996.

 

Judge McGrady emphasized the revised program does not rule out mediation for cases involving properties that do not meet the eligibility criteria. “Mediation can still be requested by parties to proceedings for commercial properties, or for any other contested foreclosure,” he stated. Borrowers with cases currently pending before the Court may file a motion requesting participation in the Foreclosure Mediation Program.

 

The revised plan also places some new requirements – particularly in the exchange of information – on participants and attorneys for participants. The complete order and necessary forms can be accessed at

 

http://www.jud6.org/LegalCommunity/LegalPractice/AOSAndRules/aos/aos2012/2012-002.htm

 

 

ATTENTION Editors & Assignment Desks: It is important that all citizens who may be having trouble paying their mortgages read or hear about their rights in a foreclosure case. Mortgage foreclosures are a major part of the local economic situation. As long as foreclosures are a part of the local economic situation, Judge McGrady and representatives of Mediation Managers, Inc. are available for one-on-one interviews.

 

To arrange an interview with Judge McGrady, call the Sixth Circuit Public Information Office at 727.453.7176.

 

Mediation Managers, Inc. can be reached at 877.664.1217 or 727.475.4944.

120119 Mediation revisions

2012-002 w-Attachments

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The foreclosure mediation programs that the Florida Supreme Court recently ordered to be started in circuits across Florida have only recently been implemented and already the lenders are looking for ways to rip away the important rights that the Supreme Court has provided for them.  The foreclosure mediation program we have implemented in the Sixth Circuit of Florida presents a real opportunity for homeowners to get a fair shake at a potential resolution to their foreclosure case, but if the directive below is implemented, far too many consumers will not have the opportunity to participate in this good program.

Please read the document carefully that is attached below:

Fannie Mae Mediation

While the terms contained within the document seem innocuous enough, please understand exactly what this is all about.  The mediation order issued by the Supreme Court required that all homeowners be given the opportunity to have their case heard by an impartial mediator in a court-supervised program.  The Order included an important loophole to that requirement and that is if the borrower already participated in a mediation that fulfilled most of the terms of court supervised mediation, then the lender could deny the homeowner the right to participate in court-supervised mediation.

The real problem here is that the guidelines published above, put all the control over the mediation process in the hands of the lender….a classic case of the fox guarding the hen house.  It’s absurd to think that the very foreclosure mills that are under investigation by the attorney general and who are engaging in fraud and abuses in courtrooms all across the state (conduct that is theoretically at least) supervised by judges could be trusted to engage any sort of fair play in a process that is not supervised by anyone.

Fannie Mae Announcement SVC-2010-13, Mandatory Pre-Filing Mediation is nothing more than a front end assault against homeowners and exploits a loophole in the Florida Supreme Court’s Foreclosure Mediation Order

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The national media is now picking up on a major issue in foreclosure cases that we’ve been raising in this office for months now….the fact that most foreclosure judgments entered in this state are entered with no admissible evidence whatsoever.  Think about that.  The Florida Supreme Court estimates that there are over 500,000 foreclosure cases pending in Florida and I’m suggesting that most judgments should not be entered because they Plaintiff has not met its threshold burden of introducing the evidence it needs to prevail in its case.

Legal Analysis-  Something is Very Wrong In Foreclosure Court

The issue first came to my attention when a law student came to work for me and started questioning the basics of foreclosure law.  This young lawyer, Michael Fuino drafted a memo then questioned how judges accepted the affidavits stuck in all my foreclosure files.  Now most times, when you get memos or pleadings from a law student, they’re all over the place…citing the Constitution and the Magna Carta and all sorts of law and rules that have no place in a fast-paced law office.  But this memo was different.  It was concise and dead on point.  I attach it right here for all the world to read:

AFFIDAVIT Memo

We continued fleshing this issue out and from that small beginning, the memo was crafted into the motion that appears below:

affidavitMONTGOMERY

That memo and then that Motion helped develop the legal analysis that made it’s way into a courtroom transcript which appears below:

wasyliktranscript

And then finally, the national legal news media picks up the story, found here:

Law.com – New Strategy in Foreclosure

I sat in a courtroom yesterday and I watched foreclosure file after foreclosure file get churned through and judgment entered.  It pained me to watch this process.  I remain and will remain very much bothered by the physical sight of seeing those files, one right after another signed, foreclosure judgment granted.  There wasn’t even an attorney for the Plaintiff present.  No attorney to confirm the facts in the file or whether the Plaintiff still wanted judgment.  Granted there was no attorney or defendant there to oppose the garbage in the files, but what about the fact that there wasn’t even a Plaintiff’s attorney to support the file going forward.  The collective value of these judgments was millions of dollars and the law firms that filed these cases cannot even send a flunkie lawyer to push the file through?  Were the homeowners in a workout plan?  Were they in modification?  Were the assignments fraudulent?  Were there really original notes in the file?  Did the defendants receive service of process?  Who was the lender getting all these properties?  Who was really owed the money?

NONE OF THOSE QUESTIONS MATTERED IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT…..JUST KEEP CHURNING THOSE FORECLOSURES THROUGH.

I hope that all this will can be righted someday.  I hope that we will all take a deep breath and think about what we’re doing here.

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Actually it probably happens hundreds, perhaps thousands of times a week across the state.  A hapless but hopeful homeowner is working with his lender (or someone he thinks is his lender), thinking that he is on the verge of a mortgage modification, when behind the scenes, the lender has convinced a judge to grant foreclosure and his home is sold.

There are remedies when this happens, but you’ve got to act quickly.  Hopefully you can catch this within ten days after the foreclosure sale.  Even if you don’t remember judgments are void or voidable if there is fraud or mistake in the files…and there is quite a bit of fraud and mistake in most foreclosure files.

Remember to challenge the sale and attack the judgment.  Read the case below, Elliott v. Aurora for an example of the facts that the court will consider….you might consider contacting the Plaintiff’s attorney but good luck getting through to someone and in my experience, you will not get their attention until you have pled out a very good case with compelling facts and good case law.

elliott v. aurora

As more counties adopt their foreclosure mediation programs, I’m concerned there will be more default judgments and sales as the homeowner is distracted by the mediation and does not respond to the lawsuit.  After meeting with those who will be running the mediation program here in Pinellas County, Mediation Managers, Inc., I’m hopeful that this will not be a major problem here in our county.  I’m convinced those running our program will be working hard to prevent errors and mistakes that will lead to false judgments.

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