If you believe you have Florida Foreclosure Surplus Funds from a foreclosure sale, there may be a limited time in order for you to retrieve those funds before they are transferred out of the Clerk of Court’s account and into the Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Unclaimed Property. Florida Statute, 45.032(3) states that any surplus funds from a foreclosure sale are to be held by the Clerk of Court, “pending a court order” to release them. But how long will the clerk hold those funds?
Typically, you have a year to wait before those funds can be released to you so the court can wait to see if there are any subordinate lienholders who wish to make a claim. After that time, if no subordinate lienholders have made a claim, then you can petition the court to have the clerk release those funds to you. If you don’t, according to the Florida’s Division of Unclaimed Property, most government entities will hold those funds for a period of five years (by statute foreclosure surplus funds are a year). Florida Statute 45.032(3)(c) states that a year after the foreclosure sale, any surplus funds that are remaining with the clerk, will be presumed to be unclaimed property and must be reported to the Unclaimed Property Division. After that time, it becomes Unclaimed Property and can be used to help fund public schools. You would then have to claim it through that Florida department, which can take even more time to get your funds.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you must wait for a year to claim the funds. If you know and can prove to the court that there are no subordinate lienholders or you can show they have already been paid off, you can claim the funds sooner. Florida Statute 45.032(3)(a) states that, “If the owner of record claims the surplus before the date that the clerk reports it as unclaimed and there is no subordinate lienholder, the court shall order the clerk to deduct any applicable service charges from the surplus and pay the remainder to the owner of record.”
I have successfully retrieved surplus funds for client within only a few months after their property was sold at foreclosure auction. In some cases, it was because I was able to prove there were no subordinate lienholders at all. In other cases, it was because I showed the court that any remaining subordinate lienholders were defaulted on and had never responded to any of the prior foreclosure court proceedings. This is not something that should be handled by a surplus recovery company, but by a qualified Florida Foreclosure Surplus Attorney. The reason I say this is because in order to successfully make arguments to the court to retrieve your surplus funds before the year is up, you have to know the law.
If you are unsure how much time you have to retrieve your Florida Foreclosure Surplus Funds, please give me a call for a free consultation. I can evaluate your case and tell you how much time you have left and possibly help to retrieve your surplus funds early. I handle Foreclosure Surplus Funds in every County in the State of Florida. And I don’t get paid unless I successfully retrieve those funds for you.