The District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District ("Second DCA"), recently held that a notice of assignment of a mortgage loan pursuant to the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act ("FCCPA"), § 559.715, Florida Statutes, is not a condition precedent to filing a mortgage foreclosure action, but certified the question to the Florida Supreme Court for resolution as one of great public importance. 

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida recently denied a mortgagee's motion to reopen a Chapter 7 case to compel the surrender of real property, citing a five-year delay in filing the motion.

In so ruling, the Court agreed with an earlier ruling from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida (In re Plummer, 513 B.R. 135 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2014)), distinguishing "surrender" from "foreclosure," and holding that a creditor cannot use the Bankruptcy Code to circumvent the obligations imposed by state law. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a lender that is on inquiry notice that its security interest in the collateral had been fraudulently conveyed may lose its secured status.

However, the Court also held that the lender's negligence here did not amount to "purposeful avoidance of the truth" sufficient to justify application of the doctrine of equitable subordination, which allows a bankruptcy court to reduce the priority of a claim in bankruptcy.

A recent decision from a United States Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Illinois provides a detailed analysis of why proofs of claim on “time-barred” debt do not violate the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) or the Bankruptcy Code. The decision, Glenn v. Cavalry Investments, LLC, is among the growing number of decisions rejecting Crawford v. LVNV from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently dismissed allegations that a debt buyer violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by filing a proof of claim on time-barred debt, holding that such claims are precluded by the Bankruptcy Code, and that the FDCPA does not provide a private right of action against debt collectors who file time-barred proofs of claim in bankruptcy court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held that a debtor in bankruptcy can pursue claims under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA") in district court for trying to collect a discharged debt, reversing a judgment dismissing the FDCPA claims and requiring the plaintiff seek relief in bankruptcy court.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently held that the automatic stay in bankruptcy does not, by itself, operate to revoke prior express consent under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq. ("TCPA"). 

However, the Court also held that, in this particular case, the debtor had sufficiently alleged that she had not given consent to the creditor or debt collector defendants in the first place, and thus allowed the debtor's individual and putative class TCPA claims to go forward.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently held that section 506(c) of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. § 506(c), permits a trustee to recover from a secured creditor the expenses the trustee incurred while maintaining a property during bankruptcy.

A copy of the opinion is available at:  Link to Opinion

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida recently overruled a debtor's objection to a mortgagee's secured claim and denied the debtor's motion to determine secured status, holding that the issues should have been brought by adversary proceeding, and in any event neither Florida's statute of limitations nor its statute of repose barred enforcement of the note and mortgage.  A copy of the opinion is attached.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida recently held that: