End of Foreclosure Mediation brings Cheers from Foreclosure Victims!

Foreclosure victims are cheering the end of foreclosure mediation.  Mediation is a another process where the banks try to take advantage of foreclosure victims .

The 20th Judicial Circuit in Lee County and other circuits across the state are in a tizzy over how to proceed in the wake of the Florida Supreme Court’s decision Monday to terminate the state’s mandatory foreclosure mediation program.

“Literally everything across the state is upside down,” said Jonathan D. Conant, president of the Conant Mediation Center, which manages the state program for the 20th Judicial Circuit, which covers Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Glades and Hendry counties.

Conant said Tuesday that he had received at least 20 emails from other mediation program managers statewide talking about what to do, and discussing alternatives. Conant, judges, court administrators and others involved in the 20th Circuit mediation process agree that there has to be a new or amended program, created locally, to take the state program’s place. They just don’t know what.

“What I can tell you is the chief judge (Jay Rosman) is working on this feverishly,” including meeting with staff attorneys, the deputy court administrator and others to figure out the next best move, said Sheila Mann, spokeswoman for the 20th Judicial Circuit. The urgency is that the courts don’t want people who file for foreclosure not going to mediation and falling through the cracks, she said.

The termination of the mandatory program comes on the heels of an October review of the program by an assessment work group created by the Supreme Court, recommending that the program be stopped.

“It was the consensus of the work group that the emergency in residential mortgage foreclosure filings that occurred in 2008-09 continues to exist as an emergency in pending foreclosure cases,” the report says. “There are now approximately 350,000 backlogged foreclosure cases in the circuit courts.”

The report continued: “RealtyTrac, which compiles foreclosure data nationwide, reports that another wave of foreclosure filings is imminent in Florida. Circuit courts likely will face a new surge of cases in 2012, which will further exacerbate the backlog.” The Fort Myers News Press contributed to this article.  Search Fort Myers Real Estate