Video: Foreclosure Experts Explain the Mess and What Homeowners Can Do

SARASOTA – Matt Weidner and April Charney are two attorneys who have been at the center of the Florida foreclosure crisis since ground zero. Despite a lot of general references to "the housing sector" when referring to the economy, there has been almost no discussion of the ongoing crisis that continues to impact Florida communities or the fraud that has gone along with it. As Widener and Charney explain at this recent Sarasota County CONA meeting, there are a lot of reasons why this is the case, but that doesn't mean that homeowners cannot take action against what they call the "failed business model" of mass foreclosure.

"You can't take residential mortgages and debt collection through foreclosure on a systemic basis," argues Charney, "especially when you have fraud in the origination process and fragmentation of the income stream from the origination or creation of the product. These are basic economic principles that were just left aside in developing the model of securitization of residential mortgages."

Charney explains the role of deregulation and the Glass-Stegall Act's repeal in aiding the financial world to systematically skirt the rules that would have once prevented such an unmitigated disaster.

“I'm convinced these were not mistakes,” said Charney, “this was a racketeering enterprise, a criminal cartel at work.”