Legal Malpractice and Florida foreclosure attorneys

Florida has been a hotbed of foreclosure activty, consistently ranking among the top states for numbers of homes taken back on defaulted mortgage loans. As a result, Florida homeowners have fallen victim to a variety of mortgage relief fraud scams, including fraud and abuse by some members of the Florida Bar. According to a recent article in the Orlando Sentinel, the Florida bar has opened 202 foreclosure-fraud grievance investigations since November, with a total of 226 now pending. According to this article, 46 fraud related cases have been investigated and closed, without any findings of attorney misconduct. However, sanctions have been assessed against 53 attorneys involed in 145 foreclousre-related complaints not involving fraud.

While this Orlando Sentinel article is focused on lawyer abuse comitted by attorneys representing mortgage lenders, many home owners and property owners have been victims of legal malpractice from their own attorneys. Many attorneys and law firms have engaged in aggressive marketing campaigns to property owners, taking fees in exchange for empty promises and false hope. Lawyers with little or no experience in foreclosure litigation have represented themselves as having special expertise or inside information to help property owners in foreclosure.

Unfortunately, legal malpractice intakes in my office have increased during the last two years, as vicitms of this kind of legal malpractice are looking for compensation. Most of these property owners will have difficulty demonstrating damages if they were unable to keep their property regardless of how poorly their attoneys represented them. Homeowners will probably have monetary losses that are too small to justify a time consuming and expensive legal malpratice law suit. Their sole remedy may be a complaint with the Florida Bar, or to seek compensation from the Clients' Security Fund. However, legal malpractice in representing clients going through foreclosure may result in demonstrable economic harm. This may be true particularly for commerical property owners. Incompetent representation may deprive the owner of a meaningful settlement opportunity, time to resolve financial disputes with lenders and creditors, or the ability to avoid personal exposure on deficiency judgments. If the property owner can demonstrate economic harm that could have been avoided with competent representation, then a legal malpractice claim may be pursued to compensate the property owner. It is likely that as the foreclosure crisis deepens, and unethical and incompetent lawyers take advantage of distressed property owners, complaints for legal malpratice by mortgage foreclosure clients will continue to increase.