Florida Foreclosure Defense Blog – The law firm of Shuster & Saben has obtained the dismissal of a foreclosure lawsuit filed against the firm’s Brevard County client. The Plaintiff / Lender filed suit against our client in an attempt of take their Cocoa, Florida investment property. In the subject action, after the lender drastically raised our client’s interest rate (to well over 8% A.P.R.), our client was unable to continue to afford to make monthly mortgage payments. Our client had financed the property with an A.R.M. (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) that was linked to the LIBOR index, and faced an increase in their interest rate after their initial rate expired. Despite the fact that interest rates declined from 2007 to 2009, the lender still raised the client’s interest rate to a point that it was no longer affordable. Several months after the client stopped making mortgage payments the lender filed a Notice of Lis Pendens and a Complaint for Foreclosure in the Brevard County Circuit Court.

The client consulted with several other Space Coast attorneys before choosing Shuster & Saben to defend the foreclosure action. After Shuster & Saben filed its notice of appearance and voluminous discovery requests the lender decided to dismiss the case and cancel the lis pendens. Counsel for the lender advised that the lender has decided to write off the loan.

To view the actual Florida Foreclosure Dismissed.

You can have any kind of a home you want. You can even get stucco.

Oh, how you can get stucco.

The Cocoanuts (1929)

For any real estate investors in Pinellas County Florida and specifically south Saint Petersburg (also known as St Pete), here’s a wholesale home available immediately for $25,900 cash.  It’s a 2/2 with 1376 square feet and needs zero work.

If you are a cash buyer in Pinellas County Florida, then email me to buy homes at 20 cents on the dollar.  Paul at brokencredit.com

I also wouldn’t mind if this post showed up in Google for St Petersburg Florida short sales, Pinellas County Foreclosures, preforeclosures, wholesale bargain homes in St Pete, hey you get the idea.

Q: What do you get when you have a $150,000 mortgage and a payoff of only $15,680 ? 

A: You get a 90% off sale at Saxon!

Payoff on July 25, 2009 is $150,031.37

Payoff on August 31, 2009 is a mere $15,680.62

And the borrower gets a full release of liability.

It’s not often that you see a reversal of summary judgment in foreclosure by way of appeals court.  And probably even less often to find one in my own backyard in the Tampa Bay area of Florida foreclosure.  So, without further ado, I post the following recent decision.

Terra Firma Holdings v. Fairwinds Credit Union (Case No. 2D08-3440, August 5, 2009)

Greetings Paul,

In re: The case discussed at:
http://www.brokencredit.com/anatomy-of-a-florida-foreclosure-defense/

While doing some research, I checked the Duval County docket on this case and noticed some additional pleadings;

 9/15/2008     MOTION TO COMPEL (PLAINTIFF’S)
 9/17/2008     MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME TO RESPOND TO PLAINTIFF’S REQUEST FOR DISCOVERY
11/21/2008     MOTION TO COMPEL

As you notice, there has been no activity on this case since November 2008.

I was wondering if you have kept up with this case, and if you have obtained the additional pleadings on this matter.

Also curious as to your thoughts on why there is no recent activity on this case.

Thanks,
Curtis (more…)

A friend of mine was at the Pinellas County Courthouse in Clearwater Florida yesterday and said while he was there, someone walked in with one of my mailers (my office sends out copies of the lis pendens along with a note to check out this site or call me for free information about some of your options).  Anyways, the person walked in to the courthouse to check to see if the lis pendens was real.  The purpose of this post is to inform anyone in Florida that they can check the following links in public records:

For Pinellas type ‘clerk of court Pinellas County’ into Google and then click ‘Official Records’ and then type in your name and ‘lis pendens’ or whatever you’re searching for.  All counties in Florida work similar, so you can type in ‘Clerk of Court’ and your county into Google for any county in the state.

If there is an active foreclosure case against you, then you can check that online too by clicking ‘Civil Records’ at the Clerk’s site in your county and then enter your name and click search.

This has been a public service message from your friends at the Broken Credit Blog.

(we now continue with our previously scheduled programming)

For Pinellas County Lis Pendens Short Sale Solutions Call Paul Jerome at 727-688-3779 or 727 688-3779 so that this phone number is indexed in Google and now you’ve reached my site and by the way, that’s my picture to the right.  So, call me and let’s talk about a full release of liability on a short sale.

This is a fantastic site for anyone who is facing any type of mortgage related financial issues.  My question is this…

My wife and I want to file Chapter 13 to help eliminate a lot of unsecured debt that has piled up over the past few years, mainly because of a job layoff I suffered in 2007, and the ongoing housing crisis that has destroyed our house value here in FL.

We have two homes, one in Florida, and one in VA.  If we file Chapter 13, we hope to eliminate our credit card debt, a large amount of hospital bills and two car repossessions.  Until I lost my job, our bills were paid on time every month, but since then, we have found it impossible to catch up. 

Our primary residence is two months behind, and we owe about $75,000.00 more than it is worth on an 80/20 loan.  Our 2nd home in VA is one month behind, but has roughly $40,000.00 in equity.  We are thinking of giving back both homes, and read that you can possibly qualify for an FHA secured mortgage after making 12 payments in a Chapter 13 plan. 

If we relinquish both properties and rent for a year, is this possible, or will we have to wait just as we would if we let both the homes foreclose? 

I read in one of your blogs that the mortgage company can file a motion b/c the 1st mortgage on our primary residence and the mortgage on the second home are both secured, even though the 2nd mortgage on our 1st home can be stripped off.

We have talked to two bankruptcy attorneys, both of whom said to let go of both houses, and apply for an FHA loan after making 12 payments with the bankruptcy trustee.  I would rather keep our primary residence than rent if we will have to wait 3 or 4 years. 

What is your thought on this?  Thanks for the help.

Jason (more…)

What do you do if you get a letter from a law office in Florida saying they are going to sue for foreclosing?

John (more…)