Use surplus trust dollars to move foreclosure cases.

During a Christmas holiday party at Epcot, Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Belvin Perry ran into Tom Kuntz, president and CEO of Sun Trust Bank.

"He stopped me and he said, 'Belvin, what can we do to get these foreclosures done? Can we pay for judges? Because all these foreclosure cases, with the time it is taking to get through the system, are just killing us.'"

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Perry, chair of the Trial Court Budget Commission, told the high-ranking banker that he thinks there is going to be a solution forged in Tallahassee.

Perry recounted that exchange at a Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee.

"Currently, in this state, we are swamped, overwhelmed, and any other adjective that one can think of with mortgage foreclosures," Perry said.

"Last year, we raised the filing fee on a graduated scale for mortgage foreclosures. They are up now into the thousands, and guess what? We're not able to get to those cases. The bankers who pay those fees are very disgruntled because we cannot get to those cases," Perry said.

"There is no secret, senators, that there is a surplus in the state courts' trust fund. You know it better than I do. There's no secret that the lion's share of that money has been generated as a result of filing fees dealing with mortgage foreclosures.

"And what we are proposing is the use of extra senior judge time, OPS case managers, and the expansion of managed mediation and a concept called 'differential case management.' We will now divide these foreclosure cases into tracks. Homestead properties, we would get them to mediation immediately, so there is a chance someone can renegotiate their loan and save their home."

There would be another track for vacant properties, where people walked away from "upside-down homes" worth less than the mortgage amount, and another for tenant-occupied and commercial property.

"By the use of senior judges creating special dockets, it would be the only thing they would do five days a week, and with the staff to feed it through, we could get these cases in and out of the system quickly," Perry said.

"There is no permanent staff, but a one-time fix."

Preliminary figures provided by the Office of the State Courts Administrator show a price tag of "a little more than $9 million and change," Perry said.

"I think if these properties get back on the market, you will make the bankers happy, you will make the Realtors happy, and you could start generating some capital."

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