{"id":15052,"date":"2011-09-29T13:12:31","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T18:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=15052"},"modified":"2011-09-29T13:12:31","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T18:12:31","slug":"mandatory-foreclosure-mediation-a-good-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/09\/mandatory-foreclosure-mediation-a-good-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandatory Foreclosure Mediation: A Good Idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Florida Supreme Court has ordered a review<\/a> of its 18-month-old mandatory foreclosure mediation program.\u00a0 Should a similar process come to Wisconsin?<\/p>\n

In July 2011, Wisconsin had the 10th highest foreclosure rate<\/a> in the United States, only four spots behind the State of Florida.\u00a0 Several initiatives in Wisconsin have attempted to inject mediation into the foreclosure process, with varying amounts of success.\u00a0 Purely voluntary processes are flailing \u2013 with lenders refusing across the board to even attend the voluntary mediations.\u00a0 More suggestive processes are seeing varying amounts of success.<\/p>\n

However, it seems that the Florida program has also been slow to gain ground.\u00a0\u00a0 (The Florida program requires that lenders try to reach a mediated agreement prior to seeking judicial involvement.)<\/p>\n

A recent report from Florida shows that only 3.6% of these mediations<\/a> are resulting in written agreements.\u00a0 This is a far cry from the generally stated 85% national success rate for mediation in general.\u00a0 Why such a vast disparity?<\/p>\n

First, the 3.6% number is of all cases, not just the cases in which the borrowers agree to take part in the mediation process. (As stated above, the program is compulsory for the lenders \u2013 it is voluntary for the borrowers).\u00a0 The settlement rate jumps to nearly 25% when the mediation is actually accepted by both parties.<\/p>\n

Second, the nature of foreclosures has an inherent power imbalance.\u00a0 Mediators are trained to be cognizant of a power imbalance<\/a> and must work hard to make sure that the power imbalance does not affect a party\u2019s ability to self-determine an outcome.\u00a0 With the mountain of paperwork that they must sign between the promissory note, mortgage, rights of assignment, and other forms, borrowers may feel that there is nothing that they can do \u2013 perhaps due to a lack of knowledge of options.<\/p>\n

Third, having worked as counsel for banks in a foreclosure, I know that the bank is often not interested in \u201ccreative\u201d solutions.\u00a0 Deed-in-lieu of foreclosure and maybe a payment plan \u2013 this was the limit of the creativity the banks would normally show in a foreclosure situation.\u00a0 And why should they show more?\u00a0 The law, the contracts, and the facts are all in their favor.\u00a0 There is little need to negotiate.<\/p>\n

However, is a 25% success rate that bad?\u00a0 Getting 1 in 4 contested foreclosures out of the court system is a great thing.\u00a0 In July 2011, there were 4,534 foreclosure filings in Wisconsin.\u00a0 Even at 3.6% success rate, there would be 163 fewer foreclosures per month.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin should look into the Florida program, as well as the programs in Ohio<\/a>\u00a0and New Jersey<\/a>, and should find a way to add this compulsory mediation step into the foreclosure process.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note:<\/em>\u00a0 Marquette University Law School has a Milwaukee Foreclosure Mediation Clinic<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Florida Supreme Court has ordered a review of its 18-month-old mandatory foreclosure mediation program.\u00a0 Should a similar process come to Wisconsin? In July 2011, Wisconsin had the 10th highest foreclosure rate in the United States, only four spots behind the State of Florida.\u00a0 Several initiatives in Wisconsin have attempted to inject mediation into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,92,87,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marquette-law-school","category-mediation","category-negotiation","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}