Just Showing Up Buys Financially Troubled Homeowners Three Extra Months On Sarasota's Foreclosure "Rocket Docket"

In Sarasota County, Florida, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports:

• Florida "rocket dockets" have earned the reputation as a cold, heartless place where a lender can retake someone's home in less than two minutes. And in most cases, that's true: The judge orders the house sold in 30 days in a rapid-fire proceeding designed to speed through thousands of uncontested foreclosures clogging the court system. But in Sarasota County, the judge has started cutting a break to troubled homeowners who simply show up at the courthouse, giving them an extra three months to try to save their home or prepare to move out.

***

• [Judge Harry] Rapkin can only do so much. By this point in the legal process, the homeowners have not raised any defense to the foreclosure suit for months. "If they've got their ducks lined up, I can't deny" the lenders, Rapkin told one homeowner Friday morning. Rapkin still gives the lender a final judgment. But instead of setting the sale 30 days out, like in those cases where the homeowner does not show, Rapkin gives more time to those who show up in court. "I can give you 120 days," Rapkin told one woman who came to court Friday. "In the meantime, hire an attorney."

***

• The attorneys for lenders are not complaining about the extension, because many of the banks are in no hurry to retake homes, 12th Circuit Chief Judge Lee Haworth said.

For more, see Homeowners can slow down 'Rocket Docket'.