Homes in Florida Seized Without Notice of Foreclosure

10-04-2010 • NakedCapitalism.com/

It may seem incredible that the foreclosure mills aren’t bothering to provide summons; after all, how hard is it to provide service at someone’s home? All the process server needs to do is slip a notice under the door or tape it to their front door. But the foreclosure mills are processing cases in such volumes that performing this task has, well, become a tad inconvenient. An employee of one of the mills in Florida explained: I worked at ProVest for 7 months a few years ago, as jobs are scarce. There were some issues there of some of the servers just “drop serving” the summons, (just leaving at the door and saying they gave it directly) or Sewer serves, (saying it was served and they never even left at the door). A few borrowers obtained legal counsel and executed their rights, as they were never properly served, but there are probably more borrowers unaware they have been “had”. If Improperly served, the court dates cannot be set. Due to ProVest’s aggressive style, and high volume of work, it is possible many servers, not direct employees, were forced to do the serves this way due to the volume and ProVest’s unrealistic expectations. They wanted a serve within 10 days of it being filed at the court house. As an employee, server or not, if you did not meet their outrageous timeframes it provoked what I call “public floggings” of employees. Not a nice place to work. Yves here. Mind you, this is a report from a few years ago; foreclosure volumes have exploded since then. How hard is it to imagine that the foreclosure mills are simply skipping this step more than occasionally in districts with bank-friendly judges? Make no mistake about it: the nature and scale of these frauds cut at the very heart of our judicial process. We didn’t call the Florida courts “kangaroo courts” lightly. A home is most people’s most important asset; shelter is a bedrock of personal security. Both the Fifth and the Fourteenth amendments enshrine the notion of due process, yet we see increasing evidence of it being violated on a routine basis in the Sunshine State.