Foreclosures in Florida will process more quickly now that Gov. Rick Scott signed the fast-track foreclosure bill into law on Friday.
The bill is the first substantial change to Florida foreclosure laws since the state’s epic real estate crash pushed hundreds of thousands of homeowners into default and overwhelmed the court system.
Scott said he supports the controversial bill, “because he believes it will add to Florida’s economic recovery by placing abandoned homes, caught up in the foreclosure backlog, back onto the market.”
But opponents of the bill including homeowner advocates and foreclosure defense attorneys, vowed to challenge the law as unconstitutional and ask the courts to delay its implementation. A chief concern of opponents is a retroactive provision that gives homeowners only monetary damages if their home is foreclosed on fraudulently. The measure is meant to protect third-party buyers from losing the home after purchase, bill sponsors said. But defense attorneys say the measure erodes time-honored property rights.
Florida’s courts have grappled with foreclosures since the housing crisis began, and cases quickly logjammed. As of March, there were 352,890 foreclosure cases in the court system statewide.