So are we.

The bill is supposed to be aimed at abandoned properties, and there is language in which homesteaded properties would not be governed by the new legislation. But we know many families will be affected. In many cases, a family member may have helped an individual purchase a home. Perhaps the home has no homestead because the deed is in the name of an individual’s mother or father, who helped obtain the loan. That home could be subject to the new legislation.

We at Korte & Wortman have opposed the bill because of the loss of due process rights that individuals would face if the bill becomes law. We and many other attorneys across Florida have urged the governor to veto the bill because clearing cases through the judicial system more quickly is no excuse for the loss of due process.

In addition, there is no question that this bill provides a “slippery slope.” This may be the first step to a further erosion of rights. If this bill becomes law, what’s to stop legislators during next year’s legislative session from simply erasing the provision that homesteaded properties are exempt? The Legislature had no problem making this bill retroactive to existing loans, ignoring the provisions of contract law under which every existing mortgage loan was signed.

We continue to oppose this legislation and urge the governor to veto the bill. Please join us in letting Gov. Scott know you oppose the bill. You can email him by logging on to http://www.flgov.com/contact-gov-scott/ or call his office at 850-488-7146.

Stay tuned. The 2013 Legislative Session ends this week.

The bill is expected to make it easier for banks to use “show cause” orders on non-homesteaded properties. In those cases, homeowners would have to prove why the judge shouldn’t enter an immediate foreclosure judgment if the bank’s paperwork is properly documented.

But “properly documented” paperwork doesn’t prove that paperwork isn’t fraudulent, and the greatest harm is the removal for an owner to be able to examine and challenge the authenticity of that paperwork. The reality is that many homeowners may not even be able to hire a lawyer before a judge’s ruling.

So, will it assist the free markets in working through foreclosures? Not hardly!

Imagine the glut of foreclosure cases as a clog in a drain. The fast-track foreclosure bill would push a part of the clog out of the courts, but rectify nothing. Homes might become empty faster as courts issue judgments against the owners. But nothing in the legislation deals with the endless delays in setting sale dates. That allow more time in which a home is owned by no one. No one can be held responsible for taxes, HOA fees and maintenance.

Nor does it address the lenders’ practice of holding about half the foreclosed homes off the market in the “shadow inventory.” After all, as long as there isn’t a new sale at today’s price, the lenders can still pretend this is 2006 and the value of those homes is a half-million dollars or more.

Many of those homeowners took those lifelines – loan modification that were designed with increases in the interest rates or loans the borrower never could afford – because they had nothing else. Some of those homeowners are falling into trouble again.

At the same time, talk is everywhere about a new housing bubble – call it Housing Bubble 2.0. Predictions are that within the next three years, the Fed finally will allow an increase in what are now historically low interest rates. As interest rates rise, more buyers will be cut out of the market.

While some families have been fortunate enough to lock in a low fixed interest rate, they’ll find themselves stuck without the ability to afford a move, factoring in a higher interest rate, and without the ability to sell as fewer buyers qualify under the higher rates.

In both of those scenarios, families will find themselves locked under water again. It’s predictable that walking away will be easier the second time around as foreclosure becomes less taboo. It’s also predictable that rises in the mortgage interest rates will trigger the next wave of defaults.

But most who receive checks won’t get anywhere near enough to fairly compensate them for the plethora of fraudulent foreclosures and predatory lending practices at the hands the nation’s largest lenders.

Remember, this settlement involved only those in foreclosure in 2009 and 2010 with loans serviced by 13 lenders who signed a settlement with the federal government.

Regardless of whether you receive a check, you’re still entitled to your day in court if you were the victim of a fraudulent foreclosure.

Banks are holding the properties off the market so they won’t have to record their real value on the books when the sale is considerably lower than the recorded mortgage.  But banks are not good neighbors.

Reasons to care if your neighbor is struggling: Unpaid taxes, unpaid HOA fees.

Reasons to care if your neighbor’s house is part of the shadow inventory: Unpaid taxes, unpaid HOA fees, unkempt yard, vandalism, potential squatters.

It is in everyone’s best interest that homeowners get the best possible chance to remain in their homes, pay their taxes, cut their yards, and contribute to their communities.

That’s an increase of 55 percent from a year ago and offers hope to prospective buyers frustrated by a persistent shortage of homes for sale. Local Realtor boards say listings have dropped by about half from last year at this time.

“Every day, I look to see what homes come on the market, but I haven’t found one I like,” said Ryan Bivens, 33, a Broward resident who works for an aviation parts manufacturer. “The good ones get contracts within a day. I want to be in something as soon as possible, but the market will dictate that.”

Although the pipeline of homes in foreclosure suggests that Bivens and other buyers eventually will have more to choose from, some analysts wonder how much of the shadow inventory the general public will actually see.

Large investment firms are committing millions of dollars to distressed real estate. They’re outmuscling individual buyers with cash offers, in some cases before the properties even make it to multiple listing services.

“It used to be that Realtors handled 75 to 77 percent of the transactions in a normal marketplace,” said Jack McCabe, a housing analyst in Deerfield Beach. “But now I think it’s closer to 60 percent.”

Initially, industry observers feared that the state’s backlog of distressed homes would overwhelm the housing market and depress prices yet again.

So far, though, lenders have held back much of their inventory to encourage a recovery and keep prices stable, said Brian Korte, a foreclosure defense lawyer in West Palm Beach. Banks also have been slow to release their inventory because they don’t have to take losses until the homes sell, he said.

Still, “they can’t continue to hold onto this stuff forever,” Korte said.

Ken H. Johnson, a professor at Florida International University’s Hollo School of Real Estate, doesn’t expect the shadow inventory to hurt prices because so many buyers are clamoring for properties. He also said investment firms gradually will lose interest in the housing market as discounts diminish.

“The banks aren’t going to give their homes away,” he said. “I think there will be more for the general public than there is now.”

There still will be opportunities for individual buyers and investors, but they’ll continue to face strong competition from firms buying in bulk, McCabe said.

Vulcan Investment Partners, a Miami firm led by a group of Mexican businessmen, said last year it was spending $150 million to buy foreclosed properties in South Florida.

Other groups, including Waypoint Homes of California and Blackstone Group of New York, also are targeting the region. They’re looking to buy three- and four-bedroom single-family homes and rent them for the next few years while the market recovers.

Dozens of firms bought more than 5,200 Florida properties in 2012 and are determined to buy more this year, said RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing firm based in Irvine, Calif.

A separate report from RealtyTrac last week showed that Florida had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate in February for the sixth consecutive month.

Although filings are far off their 2009 peak, one in every 282 homes in the Sunshine State was in the foreclosure process last month, more than three times the national average.

At year-end 2012, Florida still had more than 366,000 pending cases, up slightly from 2011, according to the state courts administrator at the Florida Supreme Court.

A Feb. 13^th story in the Daily Business Review says that foreclosure cases have been pushed through the court system like a clog through a drain, and many now await rulings in the appellate courts, often because of decisions that ignore the rule of law.

In Florida’s race to rid itself of the foreclosure backlog, courts are putting expediency above the rule of law, as this story illustrates. It frequently occurs when the courts ignore questions of validity of the bank’s star witnesses – the records custodians.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey is quoted as saying “If they (defendants) believe that an injustice has been done, they can appeal.”

Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, explains why that is an unacceptable answer.

“…suddenly you don’t have a system of rules,” Jarvis said. “And judges are just ruling based on their guts. That is not what our legal system is based on.”

“There is a process that is to be followed, and if banks can’t meet what the rules require, then that bank should be told ‘tough luck,’” Jarvis said.

There’s another aspect to this “justice delayed” wrong. By the time many of the cases make their way to the appellate courts, the homeowners often have decided their lives must move on. Sometimes they agree to a settlement with their lenders. Other times, they walk away.  No matter whether they win the battle of the courts, the delay often causes them to lose the war for their homes.

But just as the high real estate prices that squeezed people out during the boom were based on abnormal market conditions, so too might be today’s squeeze where every affordable home is being snapped up not by first-time homebuyers or lower-income earners, but by investors.

A report by Bloomberg News tells how JPMorgan Chase & Co. is giving its wealthiest clients a chance to invest in the single-family rental market. The private wealth clients’ investments are pooled into a partnership to purchase distressed properties, betting that prices will rise over the next several years and provide investors with income from renters along the way.

While analysts agree there will be a larger pool of renters comprising both those who can’t buy a home and those who choose not to buy a home, real estate brokers lament the lack of inventory for people who want to be homeowners.

Larger questions of the effects of this market phenomenon on the communities remain unknown. Inherent in owner-occupied homes was a pride of ownership and care that never has been found in rental communities, even when upkeep is decent. Because foreclosures typically sit unoccupied for many months before they’re placed on the market, it’s likely that many harbor mold growth. Will an investment company defer major maintenance projects like mold eradication or new roof installation in favor of a greater investment return?  When there are city code violations, how easy will it be to get the “owner” to correct the situation?

Upkeep of great numbers of new rentals maintained by a manager and owned not even by an absentee landlord but a faceless investment pool is likely to make city leaders everywhere shudder.

The speed is necessary, some say, because of the backlog of foreclosure cases. They clog the courts, devour resources, and must be eliminated. Certainly that appears to be the mindset of State Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, and her supporters who continue to push for changes to Florida’s foreclosure laws.

Problem is, the argument doesn’t withstand the arithmetic test. Certainly, the courts have seen more foreclosure cases in the past five years than in all of Florida’s previous history. In 2012, there were more than 21,000 foreclosure cases in process. That means each one already had generated for the circuit courts a filing fee of $1,906 if the home was valued at more than $250,000. Do the arithmetic, and that’s upwards of $40 million in the court’s coffers in 2012 that the court system in ordinary times would not have seen. In fact the circuit courts would have been seeing at least that much more for each of the past five years.

Think of this: some cases take less than 5 minutes of a judge’s time. At that rate, the circuit court is bringing in nearly $23,000 an hour. With all that additional cash, wouldn’t the courts be able to hire additional staff, clerks and judges to handle the additional caseload?

Well, they did – sort of.

In 2010, lawmakers gave the courts $6 million to hire additional senior judges and case managers to handle the foreclosure bottleneck. The clerks of court received $3.6 million. That was statewide. But that wouldn’t account for even one year’s worth of additional dollars entering the system from Palm Beach County’s foreclosure filings. Where’s the rest of the $40 million generated in Palm Beach County and the multiple millions from other circuit courts?

Foreclosure filings certainly are bringing in the dollars. If the court system isn’t spending the money to reduce the backlog, where is it going? Would the state Legislature really want to stymie the flow of milk from the cash cow?

The Palm Beach Post’s Rhonda Swan wrote in an editorial that ran Tuesday, Jan. 15, that the legislation should undergo scrutiny. That’s an understatement. Once again, advocates for homeowners are skeptical that the bill will do anything to help homeowners. During last year’s legislative session, the bill sparked protests outside the state capitol and here in West Palm Beach. The bill’s authors and supporters say this year’s version has more protections for homeowners. In fact, in a move that may be aimed at limiting opposition, it excludes “owner-occupied” dwellings on the assumption that most of those are homesteaded.

But at its heart remains the provision allowing lenders to speed up the process. Lenders can do so by certifying that they have the correct paperwork proving they have the right to foreclose. At this stage in the foreclosure debacle no one, especially not a court judge, should trust that a lender certifying the correctness of the paperwork can do so with impunity.

This bill would convert the judicial foreclosure process for a set of homeowners to a ministerial review of the lenders’ certification document. In an attempt to codify what will be required the law removes the requirement to weigh the evidence and removes all the evidentiary protections. Why require a judge to look at it at all if not to examine the veracity of the documentation?

Unfortunately, the media is reporting on the bill as if it were a potential solution to the foreclosure backlog in the courts. While this bill, no doubt, will meet resistance from homeowner advocates and stands a long-shot at adoption, it would be interesting to imagine the headlines of surprise if the bill were to pass and six months later there’s no change to the backlog of foreclosure cases. It also would be because no one bothered to give it enough scrutiny.