Trial Orders

• Pages: 225-231

Trial Orders

Chapter 22

225

It is increasingly common to see the courts pushing foreclosure

cases along on a sua sponte basis. Foreclosures have glutted the

dockets and internal systems of courts nationwide, and one of the

courts’ primary goals is to get rid of the backlog. Sometimes a fore-

closure case will sit for a while with no activity.This may be be-

cause the loan is changing hands and it has not yet made its way to

the default department. Sometimes a foreclosure file will change

hands from one law firm to another. 1Sometimes a bank’s loss miti-

gation department has voluntarily placed hold instructions on a loan,

and the bank’s attorneys will therefore not proceed with the fore-

closure as long as the loss mitigation hold is in place.

If a foreclosure case has already been filed, however, and it is

not moving for one of these or other reasons, the court will often

not let it just sit. In this situation the court may issue a sua sponte

trial order. A court may also issue such an order if a party,quite

frequently a homeowner’sassociation (HOA), has filed a notice

of readiness for trial. HOAs will often do this because the longer a

foreclosure case sits, the longer it will be deprived of association

fees from the distressed homeowner who is often no longer able

1. Diane C. Lade & Harriet Johnson Brackey, Mass Layoffsat Stern as

Fore closure Law Firm Loses Top Clients,SUN-SENTINEL (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.),

Nov. 5, 2010.