Is my husband liable for my judgement of foreclosure?

It is standard to add spouses to a mortgage foreclosure action. The reason is that the spouse may have an equitable interest in the property even if he/she is not on the deed, mortgage, or note. The bank will add everyone that may have an interest so they can foreclosure on all those possible interests. In your case, your spouse is not liable for this judgment unless he signed the promissory note. He would not be liable even if he was on the deed and/or signed the mortgage. He will want to check his credit report with each of the 3 agencies to ensure the judgment is not affecting his credit score. If it is, you will need to notify that agency of the error. You may want to consult with an attorney to help you fix his credit if there was an error.

Unfortunately, while I agree in theory with Atty. Morey's response that that is how it is supposed to work, I can attest to the fact that where foreclosures in Florida are concerned, things often do not work as they should, I have seen far too many examples of errors and confusion, that cause results that are inconsistent with the law. While I agree with him that spouses are only supposed to be included for the limited purpose of extinguishing any interest he has by virtue of being your spouse, and while such a connection should in no way impact his credit, I have seen, and have had to fight over, situations where the language by which non-borrower spouses were included was much broader than it should have been. The plaintiff foreclosure firms are large factory-like operations, turning out many new foreclosure cases every day, and are for the most part manned by clerks who have little or no understanding of the process and absolutely no understanding of the law. So, they often do not spot errors, and these errors can include virtually any part of the process. I have had to fight to force them to drop claims against non-borrower spouses where they were identified as borrowers and sought to have them included as debtors in the judgment. SInce it is obviously important that your husband not be dragged into this, it is critical that you find out immediately the extent to which he is included in the case. The time to have raised issues is, in reality, passed once a judgment is entered, but a court can be asked to provide relief from modify its judgment within thirty days after it is rendered if the the judgment results from mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect and if the judgment results from fraud on the court, the time in theory afterwards is indefinite. However, it is extremely difficult to satisfy the burden of establishing fraud in most cases, so as a practical fact, the thirty day limit is applicable to most scenarios. Accordingly I would urge you to consult a knowledgable foreclosure defense litigation attorney IMMEDIATELY to review the material filed in this action and to ascertain whether your husband was included only in the limited way that would have been appropriate or not.

I like Ms. Golant's answer, but sadly it is true. Foreclosure defense attorneys have pretty much become civil rights advocates as much as real estate attorneys or civil litigators. For the banks attorneys is about quantity, not quality. I'm sure there are probably some political or money pressures behind all the foreclosures--besides just that homeowners owe money to SOME ONE.. Perhaps "cleaning house" or "cleaning up the neighborhood" is a way to get more Federal moeny for urban blight. This is just my own theory. No one has told me this. Unfortuantely, when you are an attorney you see some ugly stuff and things just become less and less surprising everyday. Go sit down with an attorney. It's worth and hour or two--even if you have to pay for it. I know people want free advice, I ask for it all the time, but getting a little information from your neighbor and then avvo and then your co-worker rather than hiring an attorney is really just procrastinating, which we all do.