Foreclosed home prevention efforts are being stepped up by judges in Florida as the state continues to be among the states with the highest rates of foreclosure activity.
In November, the pace of foreclosure statewide was still faster compared to the pace during the previous month and the pace one year before. Almost 53,000 housing units across the state were given delinquency or foreclosure notices in November last year, according to a California-based foreclosure tracking firm.
To prevent large increases in foreclosures and to help courts reduce their backlogs, the Supreme Court of Florida has instructed local judges to implement a uniform foreclosure mediation program. According to court data, almost 450,000 foreclosure cases are currently clogging courts throughout the state.
In the court of Highlands County alone, there are more than 1,500 home foreclosure cases that needed to be handled, in addition to those cases still being filed, according to court clerk Bob Germaine.
Germaine said that Highlands County has 5 mediators appointed by the Supreme Court to negotiate with lenders on behalf of distressed homeowners, but he contended that the mediation-centered foreclosed home prevention scheme would not significantly reduce the number of foreclosure cases being filed. He has observed that lenders have already tried but failed to work out solutions for homeowners before filing the foreclosure cases.
Germaine even doubts if the mediation scheme will be able to reduce the foreclosure case load of judges by ten percent. He also added that many of the homes being sold at sheriff's sales are not being sold because of the continued drop in home values, especially for rental properties. He has observed that most properties at sheriff's sales are being taken back by lenders.
The state mediation program was adopted after a task force appointed by the Supreme Court recommended that all cases involving the foreclosure of primary residences should go into mediation and that all foreclosure filings involving abandoned and vacant properties should be expedited to help clear the backlog of foreclosure cases.
The state Supreme Court acted after noting that Florida has the biggest inventory of residential foreclosures and the biggest number of pending foreclosure cases. The Florida county with the highest number of foreclosures is Osceola, with almost 7,800 foreclosures filed over the past 12 months.
According to analysts, the main driver of foreclosures across the state is job loss and the Supreme Court hopes that the mediation-centered foreclosed home prevention program will help control the increase in foreclosure activity as the state finds solutions to the unemployment problem.
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