Monday, October 3, 2011

The Florida Supreme Court Taking Another Look At Mediation Program


The Florida Supreme Court put in place a mandatory program wherein all homestead properties would have the opportunity to participate in mediation, thereby smoothing out the court title wave of foreclosures. It was expected to help the caseload by having debtors presented with options to foreclosure, such as deed-in-lieu, short sale, or mortgage modification.

On Monday, the Court ordered a review of the mediation program, which has had very limited success in finding alternative avenues of keeping mortgagors in their homes. On average, only 3.6 percent of the cases referred to mediation between March 2010 and March 2011 were deemed successful in arranging an agreement between the plaintiff and defendant.

Five judges and a court administrator have been appointed to evaluate the success of the program, and make a recommendation as to whether the program should be continued, modified, to discontinued. The committee has until October 21 to submit its findings. Public comments are being submitted to the committee through today at www.floridasupremecourt.org.

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