Possible Good News in Florida: There is a bill in the Florida legislature, authored by Representative Kathleen Passidomo of Naples, HB 87, which, while making some foreclosures easier, will also have safeguards against some wrongful foreclosures. In the protection section of the bill is a proposal that would institute much tougher guidelines that banks and other lenders would have to abide by in the area of actually being in possession of required paperwork before foreclosing. In other words, they'd have to prove that they actually had the necessary legally required documents to foreclose instead of just claiming they had them without needing to show physical proof of that fact. This, ostensibly, would reduce wrongful foreclosures in many cases where the lending bank or its servicer didn't actually possess the documents proving the existence of the loan. Without these docs, supposedly a foreclosure can't legally be supported, and thus, cannot proceed. Separately, the proposed law would also limit time frames for lenders to pursue deficiency judgments. Current law allows a lender to file such a legal action any time within five years of the foreclosure. The new proposal would cut that to just one year. For those of you unfamiliar with deficiency judgments, they occur when the lender forecloses on a home and the home's value or the amount received at the foreclosure auction fails to equal the amount owed on the mortgage. If the amount realized from the foreclosure is less than the loan amount, the lender then files a suit requesting the difference from the former homeowner that the foreclosure was deficient. It's bad enough you've lost your home. Now the bank wants to get whatever amount the foreclosure failed to produce directly from you. Perfectly legal, but a hell of an extra dagger in the ribs to one who's lost their home. Questions? Check with your local state legislator. He's working for you, so make him provide you with the correct info. It may save you your home, or, failing that, a sizable chunk of cash, post foreclosure.