Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Finally, some relief for the HOA's!

There was a very interesting article in today's Daily Business Review. Recently, in a "reverse foreclosure", a Miami-Dade Circuit judge agreed to force a lender to take title to a property from a homeowners association. Pursuant to Florida Law, banks are only required to pay the lessor of, 12 months or 1% of the mortgage in past due homeowners association dues. Therefore, many lenders are accused of delaying the foreclosure process because the association dues they are responsible to pay, are capped. In this case, the association had already taken title to the unit but was unable to sell it because of the lenders existing foreclosure lawsuit. The subject property had been in foreclosure for 2 1/2 years. In order to force the bank to speed up the foreclosure process and the Association's dues, the Association filed a Motion for Summary Judgment against itself asking the Court to force the lender to take over the property. Judge Gerald Bagley agreed with the Associations request, giving Associations much needed help.