By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:54 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010
Scores of Palm Beach County homes were sold to investors at foreclosure auction this month for as low as $200 following the collapse of the David J. Stern law firm and ensuing confusion as thousands of its cases are reassigned.
It’s yet another muddle for the already overwhelmed foreclosure courts to sort out as former Stern cases went to auction with no bank representation, bids or proper public notice.
The result on Wednesday was 56 percent of winning offers were from investors or individual buyers who in some cases spent no more than a month’s mortgage payment to get homes that sold for upward of $240,000 during the real estate boom.
During a typical foreclosure auction, investors or individual buyers purchase between 3 percent and 13 percent of the homes, with the majority bought back by the banks.
But it is nowhere near certain the rock bottom prices will stick. Some of the sales were done without the required public advertisement. The Palm Beach County Clerk of Court will not issue a certificate of sale without proof that the auction was advertised once a week for two consecutive weeks before the sale.
Still, it takes a judge’s order to vacate or verify a questionable sale.
