TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on March 16 denied a motion for a rehearing in Bartram v. U.S. Bank, a case that deals with foreclosure actions.
JDSupra.com reported that the opinion in the 2016 case stated that if there is an involuntary dismissal of a foreclosure in a foreclosure case, a follow-up foreclosure action can be filed. The heart of the question in that case was if that follow-up filing could be done to accelerate the debt involved in a mortgage foreclosure.
“I’d be surprised if this resulted in any changes to the bankruptcy code because of its (a change in the code) potential national impact,” Professor Theresa Pulley Radwan of Stetson University College of Law told the Florida Record.
The decision is an especially important one for lending institutions in the state. They now have a solid platform from which to work in times when a foreclosure must be filed even in circumstances when previous foreclosure actions have been attempted
While this ruling has the potential to affect all Floridians, Radwan is not surprised that most are not even aware of it.
“(I don’t think) the general public gives a tremendous amount of thought to cases like this,” she said. “People are only really interested in a statute of limitations like this if they’ve been or are involved in a foreclosure proceeding.”
Is this decision the final word? Radwan believes it is.
“We see with this decision that the Florida Supreme Court has spoken and essentially spoken again. This means, that at least in terms of the court system, this narrow question has been answered,” she said. “There are questions that come as a follow up to this decision, but this narrow question is decided.”
Lewis Brook Bartram, the Plantation at Ponte Vedra, and Gideon M.G. Gratsiani were the petitioners.