Free Legal Documents May Help Financially Strapped Homeowners Against Being Bulldozed By Foreclosure Mills, "Rocket Dockets" In Attempts To Take Homes

In Central Florida, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports on Richard Kessler, a local retired lawyer who offers an electronic packet of foreclosure defense legal forms he calls the "Rocket Docket Annihilator" -- complete with an instruction sheet and fill-in-the-blank templates -- free on his website for homeowners looking to thwart attempts by foreclosure mills to take their homes by filing error-filled and allegedly fraudulent documents in "rocket docket" court proceedings.

• [J]udges in those slam-bam proceedings know they sign papers that take homes away even though the documents are often faulty, incomplete and ripe to be shot down, if only a defense lawyer or savvy homeowner raised a simple objection or two. Most judges insist they don't have time, or legal responsibility, to check for flaws themselves. That's a task for homeowners or their lawyers, the argument goes.

• That bothers Kessler, a rabble-rouser who urges people to fight because lawyers on the other side count on people rolling over. "If you don't show up at all, you're going to lose," Kessler said, so better to give yourself a chance by playing lawyer. At the least, that should force the judge to read the documents filed.

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• Few people would know which parts of Kessler's online document apply to their own mortgage. The result, [Florida's 12th Circuit Chief Judge Lee] Haworth warns, may be filings more flawed than the ones from the other side. Could be. But so what?

• The other side's legal professionals barely blink, it seems, when their many "errors" are found, like untrue claims that the owner had no desire to work out a loan modification. The lawyers blame clerical blunders and get away with it. Why should a homeowner be so afraid to make a legal goof if the only alternative is giving up?

For more, see Online foreclosure form may beat doing zip.

In a related story, see Retiree says he can halt foreclosure's 'rocket docket'.