Yves Smith has an interesting post up on Naked Capitalism about Florida Governor Rick Scott suggesting that Florida could switch from judicial to nonjudicial foreclosures as a way to solve its foreclosure overload. (At a Congressional hearing last fall, the head of BAC testified that 70% of judicial foreclosures are in Florida, a testament to that state’s high default rate and large population among judicial foreclosure states.)

Putting aside the political questions of whether should engage in such a change and whether the votes are there, I think there’s a really interesting legal question lurking in the suggestion. Can a state change from judicial to nonjudicial foreclosure as applied to existing mortgages? (Let’s assume that it would only apply to future foreclosures, however.)

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