“TAMPA – The Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court today ordered judges across the state to stop closing their courtrooms to the public during foreclosure hearings.
The move by Chief Justice Charles Canady is in response to a growing chorus of complaints that banks are sometimes taking short cuts and using questionable documents in foreclosure cases.
It’s called the “Rocket Docket” and it was created by the Florida courts to deal with the deluge of foreclosure cases across the state.
In Pinellas and Pasco Counties alone, the courts say, there are a thousand new cases every month. There’s a back log of 31,000 foreclosure cases and one of them belongs to Ernie Hassell.
Hassell lost his job and now he’s losing his St. Petersburg home.
“To have all that and risk it just going up in vapor is certainly life altering,” Hassell says.
Adding insult to injury, Hassel is one of a growing number of people who are discovering the banks are allegedly re-creating the documents needed to get them out of their homes in some cases.
For instance, Hassell and his attorney believe this “Assignment of Mortgage” was created years after discovering the notary who stamped the document didn’t witness it being signed and she doesn’t know the people who signed it.
“Document Mills across the country are employing officers and agents that purport signing on behalf of corporations that have ceased to exist in many cases before the person signing today,” Hassell’s attorney, Matt Weidner says.”
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