Florida Foreclosure Aid Plans Falter

The Florida Supreme Court continues to devise programs in an effort to help homeowners in foreclosure, or so it would seem. The Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program initiative was announced in 2009 and a Florida Supreme Court Task Force was assigned to implement the program. The 52-page report by the Task Force has all the first source information and fact-finding that led up to them establishing the Mediation Program.

The task force included court administrators and defense people who warned that there was going to be a crisis. Attorney Matt Weidner of Tampa, Fla., who has been instrumental in representing clients during the foreclosure crisis, as well as fighting much of the wrongdoing, told AOL Real Estate:
"The findings of fact are what's leading to the collapse of this mediation program, and we all said from the beginning that this is not going to work. This goes back to us not knowing who owns these properties, so we don't even know who needs to come to the table at these mediations."

The courts were pressured to establish the mediation program at a great expense, and so far there is only a single-digit percentage of success stories. That's because there are relatively few plaintiffs coming to the table. Also, the named plaintiff in these cases isn't the real party in these interests, the party driving this, the investors should be the ones at the mediation table but they're just going through the motions.

"There's a fundamental inability to identify who owns anything," says Weidner. "It all gets back to that."