In many ways, the “foreclosure crisis” is in fact…over.
But for those who languished through it…the problems will long remain.
The very worst thing for me personally…and for many of us who lived through the fights every single day, the worst part about the “foreclosure crisis” is to see just how easily compromised our judicial system became. There can be no doubt but that the reaction of our nation’s judiciary to a series of problems that were intentionally created by banks and other institutions was to bend and break the rules and tilt the scales of justice and the judicial process in favor of banks and lenders. In the waning days of these cases, things have only gotten worse. Instead of walking into courtrooms where defendants are treated fairly or the law and rules are upheld, the court system, by and large, has taken the perspective that the function of the courts should be to grant foreclosure judgments in favor of banks.
I see this everyday…in fact in one very current case that is the subject of an appeal I’m drafting right now, the judge decided to take a swipe at me and my client for daring to challenge a series of improper orders entered by different judges in the case when the judge asserted,
“Enough Time Has Been Wasted on This Issue Already”
The problem with that statement is that I am doing my job for my client and fighting to preserve the integrity of the judicial process….that’s not wasting time.
Well now the courts are going to pay the price for the ill advised treatment of litigants that appear before them…..
Florida is seeing a return to pre-housing collapse and pre-Great Recession foreclosure numbers, state economists reported Monday. While that’s good for homeowners, it hurts a state court system that has seen a steady drop in revenue for over a decade.
And after crunching the numbers Monday, economic advisers for the governor, Legislature and courts system pessimistically revised their budget forecast even further downward for the years ahead.
General revenue for the courts across the board is $19 million less than the $280.5 million originally forecast, or 11 percent, for this year. The 16 economists gathered at the revenue estimating conference Monday spent an hour of discussion in search of a more realistic “new normal.”
They agreed to hold steady for the next two years, but expect sharp drops in revenue beyond 2018 – with a reduction in foreclosure filings leading the way.
“I don’t think we’re going to see a flat level going forward,” said Amy Baker, coordinator for the Office of Economic and Development Research.
The House and Senate appropriations committees will use that “new normal” in creating their state budget proposals for the next year.
While the state’s population has grown by 19 percent since 2002, case filings are down 10 percent over the same period.
