Lawyer Provides Foreclosure Arsenal

Millions of homeowners across the nation have been sued by lenders who seek foreclosure.

Their biggest cheerleader may be April Charney.

The lawyer with the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid agency wants to shout from the top of her lungs that every one of them - regardless of circumstance - should fight back. Problem is, she said, there aren't enough lawyers who take these cases, and many don't have enough training to be successful.

"Lawyers don't go to law school to fight foreclosures," Charney said. "It's a special skill set. Even most judges aren't familiar enough with this because so few homeowners go into court."

The spunky 51-year-old Charney wants to change that.

She has quietly defended residential foreclosures for more than 10 years. Now, as foreclosure defense becomes the new hot thing in law, Charney has been thrust into the limelight amid record foreclosure filings. She's a superstar among her peers, feared by lenders and loved by desperate homeowners.

Now, she's traveling across Florida and some other states to share strategies with other attorneys - all while juggling a workload of about 40 of her own active foreclosure cases.

On Thursday, Charney spent the day with 200 lawyers and other real estate professionals. Part of her requirement for the one-day, boot-camp-style training: 20 hours of pro bono service.

"I've been drafted for this work," she said of her position with the legal aid group, which represents low-income clients for free. "I'm trying to train other recruits."

Landing Charney in Tampa was a coup for the Hillsborough County Bar Association and Bay Area Legal Services, which presented the seminar. The crowd was so large that some had to sit in an overflow room and listen to Charney through speakers. Sixty people couldn't get in.

"This is the best-attended event we've held since we opened our building last February," said Tom Bopp, president of the Hillsborough County Bar Association, who said he wants to hold another seminar soon.

"Lawyers have come from all over to hear April."

Amid the worst housing downturn since the Great Depression, the concept of fighting foreclosures is catching on. Florida's foreclosure rate ranks third in the nation. Some lawyers are scrapping other types of practices to concentrate on foreclosure defense.

Defending foreclosures is not without controversy, though. Critics say it's just a delay tactic. If a person owes the money on their mortgage, some say, they deserve to get foreclosed on if they can't pay.

Even some of the lawyers who attended Charney's seminar said they've wrestled with whether it's right to fight foreclosures.

But Charney says moral issues have no place in court. Just because someone owes the debt doesn't mean they owe it to the lender trying to foreclose, she said. With so many loans repackaged, often the lender suing for foreclosure doesn't have the right to.

If the lender can't prove it owns the loan, judges will sometimes throw out the foreclosure. If the wrong lender forecloses, Charney said, homeowners could face another lawsuit later.

Charney said her strategies came from finding sloppiness and fraud in her cases and those of other attorneys. Many of the people losing their homes, she said, are in this position because of unethical and sometimes illegal foreclosure procedures.

She pointed to "toxic" loans, such as subprime mortgages. She spoke of excessive fees some lenders tack on just to increase profit.

Catherine Peek McEwen, a U.S. bankruptcy judge in Tampa, attended and said she wants to gain a better understanding of foreclosure law.

"I think the learning curve was up a notch for the Tampa Bay area," she said.

"The state court judges are going to have more to chew on if these lawyers get in front of them."