Banks push to expedite Florida foreclosures

Florida is among 26 states that requires banks to file foreclosures through the court system, a process that takes an average of 728 days to complete. In states where foreclosures aren't routinely handled by the courts, a foreclosure takes an average of 550 days to process, from default notice to repossession.

We don't want to be too quick to condemn the Florida judicial system.

One of the main reasons the foreclosure process has slowed here and elsewhere is because banks temporarily stopped adding cases to the court system about a year ago and pulled many others from the system when it became apparent that documents in some cases had been lost or illegally signed. Another reason is the delays are partially due to lenders not wanting to have the property on their real-estate rolls because they don't want to pay association fees.

Banks have also been criticized for agreeing to short-term, trial mortgage modifications for customers, only to later refuse to grant any kind of long-term solution for the strapped homeowners, many of whom are living in houses now worth half what they paid for them just a few years ago.

None-the-less, the Florida Bankers Association is pressuring state lawmakers to speed up the court process.  Legislators are answering by considering proposals that would divert noncontested foreclosures from the courts, allowing banks to handle them in much the same way they repossess cars. If such a measure became law, it would likely affect houses entering foreclosure after June 2012.