Yearly Archives: 2012

Washington, DC - December 17, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) sent the following letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Deputy Director for Management Jeffrey Zients, urging him to maintain funding for homelessness programs as he considers discretionary spending cuts for the remainder of the Fiscal Year, and plans for the President's budget for Fiscal Year 2014. Hastings who is Co-Chair and Co-Founder of the Congressional Homelessness Caucus was joined by 31 of his colleagues in sending the letter. (Please find below and attached a copy of the letter)

Tampa, FL - December 13, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor announced today the award of a $30 million grant for the revitalization of northern downtown Tampa and the Encore redevelopment. Tampa is one of only four communities nationwide to receive a grant today from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhood initiative.

TALLAHASSEE, FL - December 12, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater released the following statement regarding his public comments to the Federal Housing Finance Authority regarding the proposed tax on Floridians. The FHFA proposal would increase Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s Guarantee Fee (“g-fee”) which could raise the total lifetime cost of mortgages by potentially thousands of dollars for aspiring homebuyers

December 10, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Barrington Coombs, 58, of Weston, Fla., was sentenced today to serve a year and a day in prison for his role in a foreclosure rescue scheme that victimized desperate homeowners on the brink of losing their homes, the Justice Department announced. Coombs was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra in the Southern District of Florida

TALLAHASSEE, FL - November 29, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi reminds Florida borrowers who lost their homes to foreclosure between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2011 and who may be eligible for payment under the $25 billion national mortgage foreclosure settlement to file claims by Jan. 18, 2013.

TAVARES, FL - November 21, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- All offices of the Lake County Board of County Commissioners, Clerk of Courts, Property Appraiser, Supervisor of Elections and Tax Collector will be closed Thursday, Nov. 22 and Friday, Nov. 23 for the Thanksgiving holiday.

WASHINGTON, DC - November 21, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- A former executive of Lender Processing Services Inc. (LPS)—a publicly traded company based in Jacksonville, Florida—pleaded guilty today, admitting her participation in a six-year scheme to prepare and file more than one million fraudulently signed and notarized mortgage-related documents with property recorders’ offices throughout the United States.

TALLAHASSEE, FL - November 20, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi and Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen are leading the national effort by state attorneys general urging Congress to extend tax relief for consumers who have mortgage debt canceled or forgiven due to financial hardship or a decline in housing values. Forty-two state attorneys general have joined Attorney General Bondi and Attorney General Jepsen in signing on to a letter to U.S. House and Senate leaders requesting them to extend this distressed homeowner tax relief, which has been in effect since 2007 and is scheduled to expire Dec. 31, 2012

TALLAHASSEE, FL - November 19, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today that the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers that entered the federal-state settlement over foreclosure abuses and unacceptable mortgage servicing practices report that they have provided more than $3.6 billion in borrower relief to Floridians as of Sept. 30, 2012, with an additional $1.3 billion in modification relief in the pipeline. The servicers reported that 48,998 Floridians have benefitted from an average of $73,663 in relief per borrower. Nationally, the servicers report that more than 300,000 borrowers have received a total of $26.11 billion in relief and an average of $84,385 in relief per borrower.

TALLAHASSEE, FL - November 5, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater’s Bureau of Unclaimed Property returned more than $199,319 to 797 consumers Thursday evening during a phone bank event for South Florida and Treasure Coast residents. In the 12 hours after the phone bank, the Unclaimed Property website had 6,949 visits to the website.

October 26, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Mayor Edwin M. Lee today opened the new Visitacion Valley Family Resource Center annex at the Sunnydale HOPE SF public housing site as part of the Mayor’s IPO (Interrupt, Predict and Organize for a Safer San Francisco) violence prevention strategy.

TALLAHASSEE, FL - October 26, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Miami-Dade Police Department today charged seven people for their alleged involvement in a mortgage fraud scheme totaling nearly $5 million. The individuals allegedly defrauded lenders by using straw buyers, filing false liens with county officials, laundering money, and inflating prices quoted to lenders.

MIAMI, FL - October 23, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) will hold a foreclosure prevention workshop on Wednesday, October 24, 2012, from1:00pm to 8:00pm at The Fountain of New Life Church, 4601 NW 167th Street, Miami Gardens, Florida 33055, where Reverend Wayne Lomax is the pastor. The foreclosure prevention workshop will educate homeowners, facing foreclosure, about the many local, state and federal programs designed to help homeowners hang on to their homes. Many of these programs have expiration dates and Congresswoman Wilson wants to make sure that South Floridians take full advantage of them, whether you are unemployed, underemployed or a Veteran facing foreclosure

TALLAHASSEE, FL - September 26, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi's office has obtained a temporary injunction and asset freeze against a company that allegedly preyed on distressed homeowners, defrauding them out of thousands of dollars in a mortgage relief scam. According to the complaint filed by the Attorney General’s Office, Edward Cherry, Lawrence Diodato, Paul Gellenbeck, Shane Frankovic, Anthony C. Pintsopoulos and their businesses charged homeowners $3,500 in up-front fees and, in return, falsely guaranteed that the defendants would “void” the homeowner’s “upside-down mortgage.” The Broward County Circuit Court today ordered the defendants to immediately cease operations and freeze their assets

TALLAHASSEE, FL - September 25, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today that claim forms are going out to approximately 167,398 Florida borrowers who lost their home to foreclosure between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2011 and who may be eligible for payment under the $25 billion national mortgage foreclosure settlement.

WASHINGTON, DC - September 21, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Congressman Ander Crenshaw, a member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, voted for a series of bills that aim to put veterans back to work, reduce homelessness, and expand accessibility to health care.

PENSACOLA, FL - September 10, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- In February, Pamela C. Marsh, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, announced that nine defendants had been federally indicted for their involvement in several multi-jurisdictional mortgage fraud schemes and that two previously indicted defendants had been sentenced to prison. Today, two additional defendants have been found guilty and now await sentencing.

WASHINGTON, DC - September 4, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that it is charging a Gibsonton, FL, homeowners association and its Tampa-based former management company with violating the Fair Housing Act by subjecting a family to different rental terms and conditions because they have six children. HUD's charge alleges that Townhomes of Kings LakeHomeowners Association (HOA), Inc., and Vanguard Management Group, Inc., violated the Fair Housing Act by telling the family that they had too many people living in their rental townhouse and threatening to evict them if they didn't reduce the number of occupants based on an occupancy policy that permitted only six people to live in a four-bedroom home

TALLAHASSEE, FL - August 30, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- Today, Joseph Smith, Jr., the national mortgage settlement monitor, released an interim report on homeowner relief that the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers have provided as of June 30. Based upon figures voluntarily provided by the servicers, but not yet verified by the monitor, more than 23,000 Floridians have received an excess of $1.7 billion in relief under the settlement. The relief provided thus far includes first and second lien principal forgiveness, forgiveness of past forbearance, refinancing, and deficiency waivers. The report also details the servicers' progress on reforming their servicing practices as required by the settlement agreement. The interim report includes a timetable for future reports with the monitor’s first audited report expected in April 2013

TAVARES, FL - August 28, 2012 - (RealEstateRama) -- All offices of the Lake County Board of County Commissioners, Clerk of Courts, Property Appraiser, Supervisor of Elections and Tax Collector will be closed Monday, Sept. 3 in observance of Labor Day