Last night the Judicial Retention Committee voted to recommend
retention of all the superior judges. There was no vote on Magistrate Zander
who the committee wants to visit with again on Thursday, March 21st
as a follow up to the public hearing. There were no negative votes and only one
member abstained on one judge with one member being absent. The votes, then
were mostly 7-0-1 with one being 6-0-1 and one abstention. The joint assembly
vote will be held on Thursday, March 28th at 10:30.
The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on H. 431, the
update to the foreclosure mediation process. The bill extends mediation to all
foreclosures after the expiration of HAMP, set for December 31 of this year. This
is set up as an “opt in” process, supported by increased outreach by home
ownership centers. Of course this requires funding for those centers and the
House Appropriations Committee is looking at options to provide that funding. One
option is to use most of a $371,000 settlement award to the state from a loan
processing company case pursued by the attorney general. One of the items on
the table is some increased foreclosure defense funds going to Vermont Legal Aid;
the other option does not include that piece. Although crossover is Friday,
money committees are not required to have their work completed by then; they have
until the end of the month.
There was a lot of work on three other bills that all affect
property and should be of interest to the real estate bar. Those bills are
S.119, the perpetual easement bill; H. 216, the energy efficiency bill, and
H.223, the shoreland protection bill. All three are in one stage or another of being
redrafted ; I’ll try to get up to date information later today. I’ll also try
to post a report today before I leave for the VBA Mid Year Meeting at the
Sheraton tomorrow and Friday. Thanks for checking in a reading this update.
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