New York Courts Vow Legal Aid in Housing

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New York Courts Vow Legal Aid in Housing, NY Times, Feb 16, 2011

Quote:New York Courts Vow Legal Aid in Housing, NY Times, Feb 16, 2011

New York court officials outlined procedures Tuesday aimed at assuring that all homeowners facing foreclosure were represented by a lawyer, a shift that could give tens of thousands of families a better chance at saving their homes.

Criminal defendants are guaranteed a lawyer, but New York will be the first state to try to extend that pledge to foreclosures, which are civil matters. There are about 80,000 active foreclosure cases in New York courts. In more than half of them, only the banks have lawyers.

“It’s such an uneven playing field,” said the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman. “Banks wind up with the property and the homeowner winds up over the cliff, on the street. It doesn’t serve anyone’s interest, including the banks.”

A lawyer for every defendant will also serve the courts’ interests, the judge said, by making proceedings more efficient.

Under the procedures, which will be put in place in Queens and Orange Counties in the next few weeks and across the state by the end of the year, any homeowner in foreclosure who does not have a lawyer will be supplied one by legal aid groups or other pro bono groups.

Legal aid groups are expected to have foreclosure offices in the courts to handle the influx.

After revelations last fall that several major banks had used improper methods to speed foreclosures, the courts are increasingly becoming a central battleground for people seeking to modify their loan and salvage their house. Simply responding to a foreclosure notice in court, homeowners have learned, can sharply delay the proceedings.

That is a change from when the foreclosure crisis began. A few years ago, most foreclosed owners in New York and everywhere else did not show up at court proceedings and simply abandoned their homes. It was a “paper process,” the New York court system concluded in a recent report, with lenders inevitably the winners. New York now mandates settlement meetings overseen by a judge and attended by the lender, a sort of court inside the court. Homeowners are participating in large numbers but most of those without lawyers have little idea how to defend themselves. The cases are also overwhelming the courts. In several counties, half of the civil cases in higher courts are foreclosures.

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A win for the lawyer class, for sure.

[kilogolfsix]

[quote='Will I Be Happier After Re-Education Meep link' dateline='1297915199']
A win for the lawyer class, for sure.