TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Sept. 23, 2010 – A bill passed by the Florida Legislature, SB 550, requires septic tank homeowners to have an inspection every five years. The Florida Department of Health (DOH) is now drafting rules for compliance. The law becomes effective on Jan. 1, 2011, with the inspection component phased in over the following five years.
The Legislature created stricter septic tank rules to protect the environment. Better septic systems are designed to filter out more nitrogen, which feed weeds and algae.
But the rule comes at a significant cost to the state’s 2.6 million homeowners that rely on a septic tank, and Florida lawmakers representing rural counties that rely heavily on septic tanks – Rep. Marti Coley (R-Marianna) and Sen. Evelyn Lynn (R-Ormond Beach) – have promised to introduce legislation next year to repeal the septic tank inspection measure.
“I just simply think that to mandate every five years for every homeowner with a septic tank to have it inspected is unnecessary and big government,” Coley says.
The DOH has heard from a number of counties and homeowners worried about the $100 to $300 cost of a septic inspection, and Gerald Briggs, DOH’s bureau chief for onsite sewage programs, says he’s “very concerned this will cost property owners,” and “we are making sure the cost is as low as we can make.”
State officials believe some septic tanks pollute more than others, and the mandatory inspections will help identify those homes. If an inspection does uncover a major problem, new drain fields could cost homeowners as much as $5,000 or $6,000 to fix, according to Sam Averett, president of Averett Septic Tank in Lakeland.
“Every system needs to be maintained,” Averett said. “You are affecting some water body somewhere – everywhere in the state … If the homeowners were maintaining their systems to begin with this would not be an issue – but they are not.”
Source: Bruce Ritchie, 09/21/2010 © 2010 Florida Realtors®
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Florida again #1... but for the wrong reasons.
MIAMI – Sept. 22, 2010 – Mortgage fraud is responsible for untold trillions of dollars in bad loans currently defaulting across the country, and Florida has played a starring role in the tragedy, a federal commission said during a hearing in Miami on Tuesday.
A panel of national and local experts sat before the federal Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission during a hearing focused on liar’s loans, predatory mortgage practices and shady home appraisals. They concluded that the financial impact of the fraud was more severe than most have estimated, and prosecuting those responsible will be nearly impossible. It was the third of four hearings being carried out nationwide by the commission, which Congress assembled last year to investigate the causes of the global financial meltdown.
‘A central issue’
“Mortgage fraud is not just a side issue – in many ways it’s a central issue of this financial collapse,” former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a commission member, said after the hearing. “I was stunned at the extent and the dollar impact of mortgage fraud and its contribution to the worst financial meltdown in half a century.”
Five hours of expert testimony painted a picture of a system wrought with regulatory inadequacies and financial incentives for unscrupulous behavior at nearly every level. The result, panelists said, was more than $1 trillion lost by banks, homeowners and, ultimately, the U.S. taxpayer between 2005 and 2007 alone. As many as 70 percent of mortgages now in foreclosure were the result of at least one element of fraud, said Ann Fulmer, vice president at Interthinx, a risk-mitigation firm that does extensive mortgage fraud research.
The hearing also laid out the laundry list of challenges local law enforcement officials face as they try to track down and prosecute the predatory lenders and mortgage fraudsters active in Florida during the housing boom.
Compared to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, which saw more than 1,000 mid- and high-level executives jailed for white-collar crime, mortgage fraud convictions have been paltry, panelists said. Solving mortgage fraud cases is difficult because the process is time-intensive and proving “intent” can be nearly impossible, said Ellen Wilcox, a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Another challenge: Florida’s statute of limitations means fraudulent loans issued more than three years ago are no longer subject to prosecution.
“Most mortgage fraud will not be reported until the mortgage goes bad, but the ‘crime’ occurred when the money was lent,” Wilcox said. “If there was mortgage fraud in the granting of a mortgage loan in 2004, it can not longer be criminally charged.”
The average mortgage fraud case takes one to two years to investigate, she added.
Law-enforcement officials are also generally under-equipped to face down Florida’s nation-leading fraud problem – the Mortgage Asset Research Institute has ranked the state No. 1 in the country for mortgage fraud since 2006, with nearly three times the normal amount of reported cases.
Still, some progress has been made, and the general consensus is that many of the individual bad apples involved in mid-decade mortgage fraud have been pushed out by market forces, tougher regulation and law enforcement.
Task force launched
In 2007, Miami-Dade police and Mayor Carlos Alvarez launched the Mortgage Fraud Task Force and lobbied for tougher regulatory laws, said Miami-Dade police Capt. Ed Gallagher. Since then, Miami-Dade police have made 239 arrests for mortgage fraud. The U.S. attorney’s office Mortgage Fraud Strike Force has gotten 401 convictions since 2007, said Wilfredo Ferrer, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
The Florida Office of Financial Regulation has put together a task force to curb the latest wave of real estate fraud – mortgage modification schemes, said commissioner J. Thomas Cardwell.
Graham and other FCIC commissioners plan to use Tuesday’s findings as part of a comprehensive financial crisis report, due to the president by Dec. 15. Graham said he hoped that report would help policymakers better understand the regulatory and market forces that led to the costly mortgage fraud crisis.
“The role of government as a regulator had gotten – as it did in so many other areas of finance – fairly soft and flabby during the early part of this century,” he said. “Hopefully, one of the positive outcomes of this terrible experience is that the agencies will be better supported, staffed and given the capability to be a lion and not a toothless tiger.”
Copyright © 2010 The Miami Herald, Toluse Olorunnipa. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
A panel of national and local experts sat before the federal Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission during a hearing focused on liar’s loans, predatory mortgage practices and shady home appraisals. They concluded that the financial impact of the fraud was more severe than most have estimated, and prosecuting those responsible will be nearly impossible. It was the third of four hearings being carried out nationwide by the commission, which Congress assembled last year to investigate the causes of the global financial meltdown.
‘A central issue’
“Mortgage fraud is not just a side issue – in many ways it’s a central issue of this financial collapse,” former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a commission member, said after the hearing. “I was stunned at the extent and the dollar impact of mortgage fraud and its contribution to the worst financial meltdown in half a century.”
Five hours of expert testimony painted a picture of a system wrought with regulatory inadequacies and financial incentives for unscrupulous behavior at nearly every level. The result, panelists said, was more than $1 trillion lost by banks, homeowners and, ultimately, the U.S. taxpayer between 2005 and 2007 alone. As many as 70 percent of mortgages now in foreclosure were the result of at least one element of fraud, said Ann Fulmer, vice president at Interthinx, a risk-mitigation firm that does extensive mortgage fraud research.
The hearing also laid out the laundry list of challenges local law enforcement officials face as they try to track down and prosecute the predatory lenders and mortgage fraudsters active in Florida during the housing boom.
Compared to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, which saw more than 1,000 mid- and high-level executives jailed for white-collar crime, mortgage fraud convictions have been paltry, panelists said. Solving mortgage fraud cases is difficult because the process is time-intensive and proving “intent” can be nearly impossible, said Ellen Wilcox, a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Another challenge: Florida’s statute of limitations means fraudulent loans issued more than three years ago are no longer subject to prosecution.
“Most mortgage fraud will not be reported until the mortgage goes bad, but the ‘crime’ occurred when the money was lent,” Wilcox said. “If there was mortgage fraud in the granting of a mortgage loan in 2004, it can not longer be criminally charged.”
The average mortgage fraud case takes one to two years to investigate, she added.
Law-enforcement officials are also generally under-equipped to face down Florida’s nation-leading fraud problem – the Mortgage Asset Research Institute has ranked the state No. 1 in the country for mortgage fraud since 2006, with nearly three times the normal amount of reported cases.
Still, some progress has been made, and the general consensus is that many of the individual bad apples involved in mid-decade mortgage fraud have been pushed out by market forces, tougher regulation and law enforcement.
Task force launched
In 2007, Miami-Dade police and Mayor Carlos Alvarez launched the Mortgage Fraud Task Force and lobbied for tougher regulatory laws, said Miami-Dade police Capt. Ed Gallagher. Since then, Miami-Dade police have made 239 arrests for mortgage fraud. The U.S. attorney’s office Mortgage Fraud Strike Force has gotten 401 convictions since 2007, said Wilfredo Ferrer, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
The Florida Office of Financial Regulation has put together a task force to curb the latest wave of real estate fraud – mortgage modification schemes, said commissioner J. Thomas Cardwell.
Graham and other FCIC commissioners plan to use Tuesday’s findings as part of a comprehensive financial crisis report, due to the president by Dec. 15. Graham said he hoped that report would help policymakers better understand the regulatory and market forces that led to the costly mortgage fraud crisis.
“The role of government as a regulator had gotten – as it did in so many other areas of finance – fairly soft and flabby during the early part of this century,” he said. “Hopefully, one of the positive outcomes of this terrible experience is that the agencies will be better supported, staffed and given the capability to be a lion and not a toothless tiger.”
Copyright © 2010 The Miami Herald, Toluse Olorunnipa. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Tips to help owners spot foreclosure scams
WASHINGTON – Sept. 15, 2010 – Last year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission identified 71 companies running suspicious foreclosure rescue ads. This year, the Better Business Bureau named foreclosure rescue rip-offs among its top 10 scams.
Here are just two common scams identified in the September “Foreclosure Resource Guide” now available at the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Realtor Content Resource:
• A representative of a so-called foreclosure rescue company promises to negotiate a deal with your lender, instructing you not to contact your lender, lawyer or credit counselor during the supposed negotiations. After you pay an up-front fee or a few months of mortgage payments, the scam artist disappears.
• A scam artist promises to fend off foreclosure in exchange for an up-front fee. Instead of getting you legitimate relief, the fraudster pockets the fee and secretly files a bankruptcy case in your name.
Also covered in the “Foreclosure Resource Guide” are free tips on what to do immediately if you’re facing foreclosure, five foreclosure pros you need on your team, what foreclosure counselors can and can’t do, and website resources for foreclosure help.
NAR’s Realtor Content Resource is an exclusive member benefit that entitles Realtors to download free homeownership content from HouseLogic to your consumer website, blog, or e-newsletter. HouseLogic is NAR’s consumer website geared to helping homeowners make smart decisions to enhance, maintain and protect the value of their home.
For more information, go to the Realtor® Content Resource at: http://www.houselogic.com/members/?nicmp=RCRIM&nichn=editorial&niseg=RMONews1_20100905
© 2010 Florida Realtors®
Here are just two common scams identified in the September “Foreclosure Resource Guide” now available at the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Realtor Content Resource:
• A representative of a so-called foreclosure rescue company promises to negotiate a deal with your lender, instructing you not to contact your lender, lawyer or credit counselor during the supposed negotiations. After you pay an up-front fee or a few months of mortgage payments, the scam artist disappears.
• A scam artist promises to fend off foreclosure in exchange for an up-front fee. Instead of getting you legitimate relief, the fraudster pockets the fee and secretly files a bankruptcy case in your name.
Also covered in the “Foreclosure Resource Guide” are free tips on what to do immediately if you’re facing foreclosure, five foreclosure pros you need on your team, what foreclosure counselors can and can’t do, and website resources for foreclosure help.
NAR’s Realtor Content Resource is an exclusive member benefit that entitles Realtors to download free homeownership content from HouseLogic to your consumer website, blog, or e-newsletter. HouseLogic is NAR’s consumer website geared to helping homeowners make smart decisions to enhance, maintain and protect the value of their home.
For more information, go to the Realtor® Content Resource at: http://www.houselogic.com/members/?nicmp=RCRIM&nichn=editorial&niseg=RMONews1_20100905
© 2010 Florida Realtors®
Did you know?
Florida, California, Arizona and Texas account for 53% of all purchases by international buyers and have remained the top destination for three years in a row, with Florida topping the list?
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Florida. economy improves, but fragile
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Sept. 15, 2010 – Florida’s budget picture is improving but remains shaky, with unemployment expected to climb through the autumn and foreclosures still outpacing home sales, a legislative budget panel was told Tuesday.
Analysts reduced next year’s anticipated budget shortfall to $2.5 billion – down from a $5.5 billion gap for 2011-12 that was projected last year. But the red ink will continue to course through Florida’s spending plans for the next three years as federal stimulus dollars dry up, Medicaid costs climb, and the economy remains fragile, analysts said.
“We know the recovery is going to be uneven – with a lot of ups and downs,” the Legislature’s chief economist, Amy Baker, told the Legislative Budget Commission (LBC).
The LBC formally adopted the three-year budget outlook presented by Baker and compiled by analysts and economists from several budget and policy committees. The outlook effectively serves as a guidepost for lawmakers, based on what analysts say are “events that are known or likely to occur.”
Baker conceded, however, that some potential budget factors remain difficult to gauge. The financial impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was not included in Tuesday’s forecast, but Baker counseled that preliminary estimates show that its impact on Florida’s economy is “not going to be some of the huge, frightening numbers that came out after the disaster.”
Other potential high-impact events include the possibility of a spate of commercial real estate defaults triggering bank failures. Thirty-seven Florida banks have collapsed in the past 18 months, Baker said.
Hurricanes and the prospect of a double-dip recession also are on state economists’ watch list.
The downsized budget gap for next year is credited to the role of federal stimulus dollars, years of budget cuts, and the arrival of Indian gambling money. But it also prompted sharp-edged questioning from Rep. Ron Saunders of Key West, designated as the incoming House Democratic leader, aimed at Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott.
Scott opposes the federal stimulus dollars, which poured $2.5 billion into the state’s current, $70.2 billion budget. State spending also was eased by $855 million in enhanced Medicaid spending approved this summer by Congress and distributed Tuesday by the LBC across five major health programs.
Scott also has called for eliminating the state’s corporate income tax, which is on track to bring $1.8 billion into next year’s budget.
“I think it shows Rick Scott’s lack of understanding about how the state budget works,” Saunders said.
Scott’s campaign spokeswoman, Jennifer Baker, has said the Republican candidate is a political outsider with a “proven track record of creating jobs, balancing budgets.”
Democrat Alex Sink has outlined a more sweeping “government reform and accountability plan” that she says would yield $700 million in first-year spending cuts. The reductions, however, may prove inflated since many of the changes she proposes are confined to such steps as reducing state office space, eliminating unneeded layers of management, and bolstering the state’s hand in contracting.
Whoever is elected governor in November is almost assured of facing a still-bleak economic outlook, according to details presented Tuesday by Baker.
Florida’s 11.5 percent unemployment rate – two percentage points above the national average – is expected to tick upward in coming months, analysts said, based on formerly discouraged workers returning to the job markets amid some signs of improvement.
Two regions of the state, Cape Coral/Fort Myers, and greater Orlando, remain in the nation’s top 10 for the number of foreclosure filings – with Florida second in the nation, overall. Median home prices in the state are 22 percent below the national average, a level that has helped spur sales and may eventually contribute to the economic recovery, Baker told lawmakers.
Still, amid the rising home sales there are ominous signs, she warned. Fifty-percent of Florida home sales are currently being conducted by banks on foreclosed properties or on quick, lower-priced “short sales,” Baker said.
Source: News Service of Florida, John Kennedy
Carmen Bongiovanni, e-pro
Watson Realty Corp
386-246-9239
http://CarmenAndGeorge.com
Analysts reduced next year’s anticipated budget shortfall to $2.5 billion – down from a $5.5 billion gap for 2011-12 that was projected last year. But the red ink will continue to course through Florida’s spending plans for the next three years as federal stimulus dollars dry up, Medicaid costs climb, and the economy remains fragile, analysts said.
“We know the recovery is going to be uneven – with a lot of ups and downs,” the Legislature’s chief economist, Amy Baker, told the Legislative Budget Commission (LBC).
The LBC formally adopted the three-year budget outlook presented by Baker and compiled by analysts and economists from several budget and policy committees. The outlook effectively serves as a guidepost for lawmakers, based on what analysts say are “events that are known or likely to occur.”
Baker conceded, however, that some potential budget factors remain difficult to gauge. The financial impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was not included in Tuesday’s forecast, but Baker counseled that preliminary estimates show that its impact on Florida’s economy is “not going to be some of the huge, frightening numbers that came out after the disaster.”
Other potential high-impact events include the possibility of a spate of commercial real estate defaults triggering bank failures. Thirty-seven Florida banks have collapsed in the past 18 months, Baker said.
Hurricanes and the prospect of a double-dip recession also are on state economists’ watch list.
The downsized budget gap for next year is credited to the role of federal stimulus dollars, years of budget cuts, and the arrival of Indian gambling money. But it also prompted sharp-edged questioning from Rep. Ron Saunders of Key West, designated as the incoming House Democratic leader, aimed at Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott.
Scott opposes the federal stimulus dollars, which poured $2.5 billion into the state’s current, $70.2 billion budget. State spending also was eased by $855 million in enhanced Medicaid spending approved this summer by Congress and distributed Tuesday by the LBC across five major health programs.
Scott also has called for eliminating the state’s corporate income tax, which is on track to bring $1.8 billion into next year’s budget.
“I think it shows Rick Scott’s lack of understanding about how the state budget works,” Saunders said.
Scott’s campaign spokeswoman, Jennifer Baker, has said the Republican candidate is a political outsider with a “proven track record of creating jobs, balancing budgets.”
Democrat Alex Sink has outlined a more sweeping “government reform and accountability plan” that she says would yield $700 million in first-year spending cuts. The reductions, however, may prove inflated since many of the changes she proposes are confined to such steps as reducing state office space, eliminating unneeded layers of management, and bolstering the state’s hand in contracting.
Whoever is elected governor in November is almost assured of facing a still-bleak economic outlook, according to details presented Tuesday by Baker.
Florida’s 11.5 percent unemployment rate – two percentage points above the national average – is expected to tick upward in coming months, analysts said, based on formerly discouraged workers returning to the job markets amid some signs of improvement.
Two regions of the state, Cape Coral/Fort Myers, and greater Orlando, remain in the nation’s top 10 for the number of foreclosure filings – with Florida second in the nation, overall. Median home prices in the state are 22 percent below the national average, a level that has helped spur sales and may eventually contribute to the economic recovery, Baker told lawmakers.
Still, amid the rising home sales there are ominous signs, she warned. Fifty-percent of Florida home sales are currently being conducted by banks on foreclosed properties or on quick, lower-priced “short sales,” Baker said.
Source: News Service of Florida, John Kennedy
Carmen Bongiovanni, e-pro
Watson Realty Corp
386-246-9239
http://CarmenAndGeorge.com
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