Supporting, Informing & Connecting People in Foreclosure

Palm Beach County Foreclosure Final Judgment & Sale Date: SAVE YOUR ENVELOPES!

Project: Research study into the violation of the right to request a rehearing and/or appeal a final judgment

Background: In Florida, after a judge grants a final judgment, there is a short time frame to request a rehearing and an appeal of that judgment. Once these deadlines pass, the ability to request a rehearing or an appeal is effectively paralyzed. We are receiving reports of up to 4 month lag time before the homeowner or their attorney receives notice of the final judgment and sale date. This wouldn't be so bad if the homeowner or their attorney actually knew that the hearing took place, but in today's third world system of justice in Palm Beach County, foreclosure mills often schedule hearings on the secret judicial rocket docket calendar, neglect to inform the homeowner, tenants, and their attorneys of this critical hearing. Often, the first glimmer that this hearing even took place is the notice mailed from the court 4 months later informing of the granted final judgment and the looming sale date.

Another violation of rights.

Another obstacle to having one's day in court.

Another rocket docket success.

Another step closer to the court's incentive pay off for clearing the backlog.

Please pass this along. Save the envelopes and the final judgments. Scan and email to ForeclosureHamlet [at] gmail [dot] com

Email for a fax number if you don't have a scanner.

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Comment by James M on September 10, 2010 at 3:41pm: Good idea. Keep track of what is happening on the docket sheet. In Florida SJ motions and notices of hearings must be served 20 days in advance of the hearing.

EVERY TIME you receive something from the Plaintiff or court take the envelope and immediately staple it you the back of the document, and note on it the date you got it. Later you can compare the date of service on the certificate of service to the date stamp on the envelope.

This allows you to build a case that FREQUENTLY or REPEATEDLY the Plaintiff fails to mail on the date they certify they have served a copy on you.

This also helps you build a stronger case if you say you were not served. The court is not going to believe you, but evidence that you keep a file of everything served in the court record, along with the envelopes, which may even show prior errors or fraud in the certificates of service, will help you build a stronger case.

When you find something like that, where time has passed for rehearing or filing notice of appeal you need to move quickly. You should seriously consider hiring an attorney, if you don't already have one, because overturning or voiding a judgment is an up hill battle that most pro se litigants are not competent to fight and win. The court is likely to turn around and say, it is your duty to know and examine the docket sheet and you have no evidence that you were not served. At that point the court is asking you to try and prove a negative is just about impossible. So my advice for overturning or vacating a SJ, if time for taking an appeal has passed, is to hire competent counsel, at least for that part of the action.

I have found some good case law that failure to serve the motion and notice of hearing for a SJ hearing makes the SJ hearing void. Also case law that the passage of time does not make a void judgment un-void. BUT you have to file to vacate promptly when you find out about the erroneous judgment. Preferably before one year has passed since the judgement, although I have found case law that suggests the one year is not a hard time line if judgement was void.

Keep a file that mirrors the court file and have an index to it that in large part mirrors the court docket sheet. (Keep correspondence with servicer and other stuff not in court record in separate file.) Staple every envelope to the back of every thing that comes in.
If several things in one envelope than you may want to make a note on the back of each document the date mailed, date recieved and to which document you attached the envelope of that batch.

Your keeping good records, as custodian of your own records, might be useful to show the court that should you have recieved such a motion and notice it would be in your records.

One last thing: For the more technically astute. Sometimes the court keeps online docket sheets that can be directly linked to by a URL link. If so, there are some bits of software or online services that that can be configured to alert you by email if the page changes. Does not work with all Clerk of Court websites but does work with some. This may help you get notifications as soon as the Clerk of Court updates the docket sheet.