Legal News

Thirty Percent of Homes Saved from Sheriff's Sale in Mortgage Program

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

The one-year anniversary of the First Judicial District's mortgage foreclosure diversion pilot program was celebrated this week with court leaders noting that 1,400, or 30 percent, of the 4,690 homeowners who have gone through the program in the last year have had their homes removed from sheriff's sale.

Another 700 homeowners had sheriff's sale postponed for further settlement discussions, according to court leaders.

The anniversary was celebrated with a luncheon paid for by the Philadelphia Bar Association and with a ceremony held Tuesday.

Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille said the program was worth it even if just one home had been saved.

Trial Division Administrative Judge D. Webster Keogh said he was amazed as a former trial lawyer at how the program changed the posture of the lender bar and the borrower bar from a litigation posture. Now both sides of mortgage foreclosure cases meet each other, look into each other's eyes and save homeowners from being displaced and lenders from losing income, Keogh said.

Common Pleas Judge Annette M. Rizzo, the presiding judge over the program, honored all of the program's multiple stakeholders, from the community groups who knock on the doors of homeowners in foreclosure to the lender bar to the volunteer lawyers who serve as homeowner counsel or settlement masters, by asking the groups of stakeholders to stand one by one to receive the applause of the people packed into ceremonial courtroom 653.

The program has been a model for many other jurisdictions in the United States and has been honored nationally. Recent awards include the American Bar Association's 2009 Harrison Tweed Award in honor of the Philadelphia Bar Association's pro bono lawyer participation in the program and the 2009 Justice Achievement Award from the National Association for Court Management.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on July 01, 2009 (boomark / email).