Bankruptcy bar gets a lesson on bad lending

Lawyers attending the Jacksonville Bankruptcy Bar Association’s most recent luncheon received an important lesson about bad lending practices last week.

Besides the usual meeting minutes and information, JBBA members also received a presentation regarding predatory lending practices by April Charney of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.

Charney, a consumer law attorney who specializes in foreclosure defense, said the information session was especially important for bankruptcy attorneys because they are already suited to defend foreclosures and other issues that stem from predatory lending practices.

“The idea was to teach these lawyers that they can do this,” said Charney.

According to Charney’s statistics, which were pulled from the clerk’s office, there were more than 4,000 foreclosures in Duval County last year and many were due to shoddy sub-prime loans, a major facet of predatory lending, she said.

Charney said many of Duval’s foreclosures could have been avoided had the homeowners consulted an attorney. She said almost every foreclosure case that is defended gets settled out of court.

“Many lawyers will explain that it is more important to defend the case,” she said. “Judges rarely get to see a foreclosure case get defended. Every foreclosure that is avoided is as valuable as each Habitat for Humanity home that is built.”

Mamie Davis, bankruptcy attorney and president of the JBBA, said she thought the information session was especially helpful for the group because as bankruptcy attorneys they often see the results of predatory lending.

Davis said a lot of predatory lending victims end up in bankruptcy court and many people that file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy usually do so in order to avoid foreclosure on their home.