Why should you hire a foreclosure defense attorney? John Anastasio is an attorney at the Law Offices Of John Anastasio in Stuart, Florida. In practice since 1981, Anastasio is an expert in the fields of foreclosure defense and bankruptcy law, tells you why.
The number one reason for hiring a lawyer to help with your foreclosure case is simply because you can. Hiring an attorney who specializes in foreclosure cases can help you stay in your home and give you a fighting chance against the banks. The reality of the situation is that in many cases the banks simply have not done their job. So what we are able to do as attorneys is give clients a better chance of success in their case.
Ideally, homeowners should be hiring a foreclosure attorney as soon as they are served with a lawsuit, but not before. Before the lawsuit is served, there is not much point in hiring an attorney. The reason I say this is because the banks are not going to negotiate the loan at that point. However, once the bank has gotten involved in the litigation process, that is when they are going to first be governed by the rules of the court and that is when a qualified attorney can really force the bank representatives to come to the table and negotiate.
In most cases, what will happen once a foreclosure lawsuit has been served is that the court will automatically order mediation to occur. This, in turn, will force the bank representative—who is the person with the authority to settle the case—to be there. And when all parties are there, then that is when we can solve this.
Having an attorney present for this mediation helps a homeowner avoid the problems that many individuals come across when they try to negotiate something themselves. Too often, when an individual tries negotiating, what happens is the terms change every five minutes. Or, another scenario is that they are in the process of negotiating, and they are finally getting somewhere, when suddenly the individual is served with more papers. So hiring an attorney can really help guide you through the process and make the mediation itself more effective in many cases.
Also, many people don’t realize that they may be able to stay in their homes while the foreclosure lawsuit is going on. So by hiring an attorney, you are looking at being able to stay in your home for the duration of the time it takes to resolve the lawsuit, which is a lengthy process. So whether you are interested in staying put as a way to save on the rent you’d be paying at another home, or as a way to avoid disrupting your family—which is often the case for those families with children in school—hiring an attorney can help save you money by letting you stay in your home a little longer.
In many cases, the banks simply have not done their job, which is why it is so important that homeowners hire an attorney who can give them a fighting chance in their foreclosure case. Oftentimes, homeowners end up saving money—by not having to pay rent on a separate apartment while their case is pending—by hiring a qualified lawyer. The ability to stay in your home for a little longer is certainly the biggest benefit to a lot of people. Overall, that is what people are looking for. They just need a fighting chance, and a lawyer can give them that and also slow down the clock in terms of how long the entire ordeal takes to complete.
The homeowners who are going through this are hardly alone. In just the past year, I have shifted into doing much more foreclosure work than ever before. What we are seeing at our law office now is that virtually all the clients who come in are struggling with foreclosure issues. Tens of thousands of foreclosures are filed in this country every week—not every year, every week. In St. Lucie County alone, there are probably 10,000+ foreclosures, and 11,000+ foreclosures in Dade County, Florida. So there is just an endless need for qualified, skilled foreclosure defense attorneys today and that is a need I am trying to meet for people.
