From News Service of Florida

The Florida Supreme Court last month ordered local judges to adopt a uniform mediation program for foreclosure cases and other interventions to deal with the tide of foreclosure cases clogging the courts.

Chief Justice Peggy Quince agreed with the court’s Task Force on Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Cases, which earlier this year recommended the program, and ordered its adoption.

Quince’s order sets out a model administrative order to be issued by chief judges in each circuit under which all foreclosure cases in state court that involve residential homesteaded property will be referred to mediation unless the plaintiff and the borrower agree to skip the step, or the borrower refuses to participate.

If the parties have already gone to pre-suit mediation that “substantially complies” with the mediation program requirements, they wouldn’t be expected to go through it again under the order. The cost would be paid by the lender bringing suit.

In addition to mediation, the order also calls for pre-mediation foreclosure counseling and early exchange of borrower and lender information prior to mediation.

Foreclosure case filings in Florida trial courts stood at nearly 369,000 at the end of 2008, the court noted, and at the beginning of the final quarter of 2009 were much lower, but still just over 296,000.