Miami Judge Orders Foot-Dragging Lender To Foreclose & Take Title To Condo Or Start Paying Maintenance Fees

In Miami, Florida, the Miami Daily Business Review reports:

• As bills mounted and revenue shrank, the board of Miami Beach's luxury Bentley Bay condo knew it had to take drastic action. [...] In one instance, the condo association took legal action against a lender that it said was dragging out the foreclosure process to avoid paying maintenance fees.

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• Unit 212 at the Bentley was mired in a drawn-out foreclosure process, and fees were mounting. The cash-strapped condo association finally asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Daryl Trawick, who was overseeing the foreclosure case, to force U.S. Bank to take title to the unit or immediately start paying maintenance fees.

• In his June 1 order, Trawick gave U.S. Bank, the trustee for Citigroup Mortgage Loan, two choices: Don't foreclose and start paying maintenance fees on a unit it doesn't actually own, or foreclose and pay thousands of dollars in past-due fees.

For more, including links to the condo association's court filing requesting that the bank be compelled to foreclose, and Judge Trawick's order directing the lender to do so, see Desperate times call for desperate measures for condo associations.

For Attorneys:

In the condo association's court filing (at paragraph 12 of the motion to compel), the Florida court case F.D.I.C. v. Ventura Corp. of Sarasota, Inc., 622 So. 2nd 581, 582 (5th DCA 1993) is cited as precedent in support of the proposition that a trial court, exercising its equitable powers, can compel a mortgage holder to either proceed with a foreclosure sale or to pay the condominium association's monthly assessments.