October 25, 2010, 2:59 PM EDT

By David McLaughlin

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) — Banks continue to cancel foreclosure hearings and sales in Florida, the U.S. state with the highest foreclosure rate behind Nevada and Arizona, after Bank of America Corp. said it was resuming efforts to seize homes.

Banks had called off about a third of their foreclosure- judgment hearings and more than half of their auctions at two Florida courthouses as of this morning, according to court records and personnel. Court administrators said rules mandating that homeowners be notified mean that foreclosures won’t resume in earnest for at least a month.

Bank of America and Detroit-based Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit said they were moving to complete pending foreclosures following complaints that home seizures nationwide were based on faulty documentation. Attorneys general in all 50 states, as well as federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Justice, are investigating.

GMAC said it is reviewing foreclosure cases that potentially have defective affidavits in the 23 states that use judicial proceedings for foreclosures, including Florida. If there are problems, they will be fixed and the cases then allowed to proceed, said Gina Proia, a spokeswoman for GMAC. Any case going to foreclosure sale in non-judicial states will also be reviewed, she said in an interview.

‘Ongoing Process’

“It’s an ongoing process and we expect the majority will be completed by the end of the year,” Proia said. In Palm Beach County, banks had canceled 139 out of 213 foreclosure auctions scheduled for today, according to court records. Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America were among those listed as canceling the sales.

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