0 Comments | Palm Beach Post, Jul 8, 2010 | by KIMBERLY MILLER
Two senior judges and six case managers have been added to tackle Palm Beach County’s foreclosure backlog, with salaries paid for by $640,000 from state coffers.
The new 15th Judicial Circuit employees, including four clerical assistants, last week began to whittle down the estimated logjam of 52,000 foreclosures in county courts.
The money to hire the additional workforce is part of a onetime statewide court allotment of $6 million. The Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller’s Office received $403,000 out of a $3.6 million statewide allowance to handle the foreclosure paperwork overload.
Palm Beach County Clerk Sharon Bock expects to hire about 15 temporary employees with the county’s share of money.
Before last week, the county had just one full-time foreclosure judge.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to make some progress on the backlog,” said Peter Blanc, chief judge of the 15th circuit. “We’re in new territory and trying to figure out how it will all play out.”
The 19th Circuit Court, which includes Martin and St. Lucie counties, received $212,729 to hire senior judges, case managers and administrative assistants.
Judges are paid $350 a day, a fee set by the state.
Blanc said it is important to clear the foreclosure cases so that vacant and dilapidated homes can go back on the market, presumably increasing neighborhood property values. The two senior judges joining foreclosure division Judge Meenu Sasser are Howard Harrison and Roger Colton.
Blanc estimated the number of foreclosure summary judgments heard in the county each week will increase initially from 1,000 to 2,000.
Requests for summary judgments are made in lieu of a full trial request. They are often filed by lenders who believe they have evidence showing there should be no issues in dispute, such as affidavits on how much is owed on the home and the number of missed payments.
Earlier this year, Blanc said there were 5,000 summary judgment requests that could not get calendar dates. He hopes to have all of those taken care of by late August.
Homeowner advocates fear the courts may be in too much of a rush to clear the cases, possibly overlooking details such as proof that the lender holds the mortgage note.
“It seems like the goal of the judicial system is to process these cases as fast as possible,” said Lisa Epstein, a West Palm Beach homeowner who is fighting a foreclosure and runs a website, foreclosurehamlet.org. “Doing a rush job at this point is benefiting one party and one party only, and that’s the foreclosure entities.”
Trent Steele, a Hobe Sound attorney who specializes in real estate transactions, said much of foreclosure law has been formed in the past few years as cases skyrocketed following the real estate bust foreclosure help
Extra help hired to pare caseload
Extra help hired to pare caseload
0 Comments | Palm Beach Post, Jul 8, 2010 | by KIMBERLY MILLER
Two senior judges and six case managers have been added to tackle Palm Beach County’s foreclosure backlog, with salaries paid for by $640,000 from state coffers.
The new 15th Judicial Circuit employees, including four clerical assistants, last week began to whittle down the estimated logjam of 52,000 foreclosures in county courts.
The money to hire the additional workforce is part of a onetime statewide court allotment of $6 million. The Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller’s Office received $403,000 out of a $3.6 million statewide allowance to handle the foreclosure paperwork overload.
Palm Beach County Clerk Sharon Bock expects to hire about 15 temporary employees with the county’s share of money.
Before last week, the county had just one full-time foreclosure judge.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to make some progress on the backlog,” said Peter Blanc, chief judge of the 15th circuit. “We’re in new territory and trying to figure out how it will all play out.”
The 19th Circuit Court, which includes Martin and St. Lucie counties, received $212,729 to hire senior judges, case managers and administrative assistants.
Judges are paid $350 a day, a fee set by the state.
Blanc said it is important to clear the foreclosure cases so that vacant and dilapidated homes can go back on the market, presumably increasing neighborhood property values. The two senior judges joining foreclosure division Judge Meenu Sasser are Howard Harrison and Roger Colton.
Blanc estimated the number of foreclosure summary judgments heard in the county each week will increase initially from 1,000 to 2,000.
Requests for summary judgments are made in lieu of a full trial request. They are often filed by lenders who believe they have evidence showing there should be no issues in dispute, such as affidavits on how much is owed on the home and the number of missed payments.
Earlier this year, Blanc said there were 5,000 summary judgment requests that could not get calendar dates. He hopes to have all of those taken care of by late August.
Homeowner advocates fear the courts may be in too much of a rush to clear the cases, possibly overlooking details such as proof that the lender holds the mortgage note.
“It seems like the goal of the judicial system is to process these cases as fast as possible,” said Lisa Epstein, a West Palm Beach homeowner who is fighting a foreclosure and runs a website, foreclosurehamlet.org. “Doing a rush job at this point is benefiting one party and one party only, and that’s the foreclosure entities.”
Trent Steele, a Hobe Sound attorney who specializes in real estate transactions, said much of foreclosure law has been formed in the past few years as cases skyrocketed following the real estate bust
foreclosure help