News

Periodically the world of synthetic hedge arrangements collides with that of commercial lending in a way that provides interesting results. I was recently surveying some case law involving this very topic and came across Blue Bonnet Hotel Ventures, L.L.C. v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 754 F.3d. 272 (5th Cir. Ct. App. 2014). In this case, Blue Bonnet entered into an interest rate swap agreement... read more

By Timothy D. Hedrick and Mark S. Mitchell On December 9, 2015, Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal issued an opinion hurting a borrower’s ability to claim a lender orally agreed to modify the borrower’s obligations. In OCWEN Loan Servicing, LLC v. Delvar,[1] the trial court accepted a borrower’s argument that he was told by his lender that foreclosure proceedings... read more

By Timothy D. Hedrick and Mark S. Mitchell In August 2013, we discussed the requirements for enforcing a lost promissory note. The same year, the Florida legislature passed Section 702.015, Florida Statutes, requiring that the holder of a promissory note file an affidavit or certification regarding the location of the note at the time it files a complaint. Importantly, section 702.015 requires... read more

We are all aware of the basic premise that one must own real property in order to mortgage it.  However, what happens in a case where the mortgage is signed and delivered a few days before the deed to the property?  Conventional wisdom would suggest that the mortgage lender is simply out of luck as the borrower, not being the owner at the time the mortgage was given, had no legal... read more

By Timothy D. Hedrick and Mark S. Mitchell The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the “FDCPA”), codified at 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692–1692p, is a consumer protection statute intended to curtail false, deceptive, or unfair debt collection practices. The FDCPA regulates the conduct of “debt collectors,”[1] and provides consumers with a civil cause of action... read more