Foreclosure activity fell 7 percent in the United States in September from a year earlier, but rose 13.5 percent in Florida, continuing a trend, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based data firm.

Foreclosure activity – which includes default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions – has risen for eight of the past nine months, the firm said.

In Miami-Dade, foreclosure activity rose 26 percent in September from a year earlier to 4,316 filings from 3,424. The county has shown increases in 10 of the past 11 months.

In Broward County, activity jumped 65 percent in September to 4,214 filings from 2,553 a year earlier, the firm reported.

The increase in activity in Florida is likely driven by the fact that foreclosures are handled in the courts, which take longer than states that resolve them administratively, the firm said.

“This isn’t a new crop of distressed owners deciding to stop paying their mortgage,’’ said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “This is a function of it takes longer for foreclosures in judicial states.’’

In many cases, banks are not filing foreclosure notices until the amount in default is very large, he added.

Other so-called judicial states such such as Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey and New York, where foreclosures are handled in the courts, also showed increased activity counter to the overall decline in foreclosure activity, RealtyTrac said.