Florida Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit By Miami Widow Alleging Conspiracy To Defraud, Fraud, Negligence In Foreclosure Rescue, Home Equity Ripoff

A Florida appellate court reversed a lower court ruling that dismissed a case with prejudice brought by a 72-year old widow facing foreclosure who complained that she was tricked into signing away the title to her home by an alleged equity stripping, foreclosure rescue operator, Florida Foreclosure Placement Center ("FFPC").

According to the complaint, she was approached by an agent of the company who assured her that it was not a mortgage broker or realtor and that FFPC could help her save her home without losing ownership. After agreeing to FFPC’s help, the agent accompanied her to a Notary Public located near her Liberty City home where she signed a power of attorney in favor of FFPC. Two months later, she executed documents that purportedly would save her home from foreclosure without jeopardizing her ownership. The documents did not, however, preserve her ownership interest, but instead closed the sale of, and transferred title to, her home to a strwa buyer who she had never heard of or met and who was not present at the closing of this sale. This "sale" was financed with the proceeds of two loans in the total amount of $165,000 brokered by two of the alleged conspirators - Envision Funding, LLC and Cesar Jose.

In reinstating the lawsuit, the appeals court ruled that the widow's complaint sufficiently stated claims regarding the sale of her home against a title agent, a mortgage broker, and the broker's principal for negligence, fraud, and conspiracy to defraud, and that to the extent there wer pleading defects in the complaint, the homeowner should have been allowed to amend her claims.(1)

For the case, see Charles v. Florida Foreclosure Placement Center, 988 So. 2d 1157 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008).

(1) While this case is not precent-setting in any legal sense, it does, nevertheless, support the proposition that there are still lower court judges who are either intellectually lazy, or who operate with their head in the clouds when it comes to issues of home equity theft. Whether the 72 year old widow is able to prove in court that she had her house stolen remains to be seen. But the appellate court made it clear, in a unanimous decision, that the complaint should not have been dismissed without her having the opportunity to prove her allegations. Credit goes to her appellate attorney, James Jean-Francois, who took on the appeal on her behalf, and without whom she would have lost any chance to recover the title to her home.