My biggest Florida foreclosure surplus fear for a homeowner came to pass this last week. Here is the situation:
A homeowner, that owned 50% of the property before the foreclosure sale and at the time of the lis pendens being filed, contacted me and stated that he had assigned his interest to a surplus recovery business. However, he had major concerns about the ability of this company to collect his half of the surplus funds. These concerns are due to the fact that the other owner was trying to claim more than 50% of the entire claim. As well as this third party company being disorganized, unresponsive and lacking knowledge (surprise). This is foreclosure surplus litigation at its finest and requires a Florida foreclosure surplus lawyer that knows what they are doing.
The potential client (PC) wanted to hire my firm to go to the Tampa Foreclosure surplus hearing. Therefore, the PC called the third party assignee and let them know their services were no longer needed. Instead of being happy for the PC and letting them go with an actual Florida Foreclosure Surplus Lawyer, the third party company stated, “it’s too late, we have already filed the motions.” The motions were not filed. Three hours later, after being fired, counsel for the third party filed four boilerplate motions for the funds, claiming that the PC was no longer entitled to them on his own as he assigned them away.
This situation bothers me because these third party companies do NOT know what to do if any controversy in the surplus case arises. This is because the majority of these “asset recovery” companies are NOT even lawyers! They call, lie, and harass former homeowners into assigning their rights away, then the third party surplus trustee files a boilerplate motion to get the funds and won’t let you hire someone else if you need actual help.
The good news is this: the purported assignment the PC signed does not adhere to Florida Statute 45.033(3), which is very specific to protect homeowners from third party asset recovery surplus companies, like this one. Therefore, the third party company will have a difficult time proving in court that they are now the assignee under Florida Statute. They will have to show that they procured the assignment with good faith without the intent to defraud per Florida Statute 45.033(5). I doubt they will be able to meet this burden, as the above facts will be presented to the Judge.
If you are entitled to Florida Foreclosure Surplus Money and have assigned all of your rights to a third party asset recovery company, and now regret it, please contact our law firm for a free consultation. You may be able to keep your claim! Whether you need a Miami Foreclosure Surplus lawyer, Fort Lauderdale Foreclosure Surplus lawyer, Orlando Foreclosure Surplus Funds lawyer, Tampa Foreclosure Surplus lawyer, Palm Beach Foreclosure Surplus Funds lawyer, Fort Myers Surplus Funds Lawyer, St. Pete Foreclosure Surplus Lawyer or a Jacksonville Foreclosure Surplus lawyer, Haynes Law Group would be happy to give you a free consultation. Contact us today!