Online foreclosure auctions on the way in Miami-Dade

The Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts is seeking to speed court-supervised foreclosure sales with a new online auction system early next year.

The auction website, www.MiamiDade.Realforeclose.com, went live Monday, allowing users to become familiar with the system.

The online auction will eliminate traditional, live courthouse auctions.

Orange County to move foreclosure bidding online

One central Florida county is planning on moving foreclosure auctions online.

Orange County, which has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state, is in the process of moving thousands of pending cases from the courtroom to the Internet, in hopes of cutting down its backlog.

The county has 32,065 cases currently pending, most involving residential properties.

Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts Harvey Ruvin was misidentified in a photo caption Saturday on Page 1B.

Miami-Dade launches online foreclosure auctions

Massive amounts of foreclosures clogging county's civil courts

Most everyone involved in a foreclosure says they never wanted to go through the process in the first place: Not the homeowners at risk of losing their houses, not the banks that loaned them the money, not the judges who must rule on the cases.

Still, court clerks say more than 135,000 foreclosures could be filed in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties this year -- compared to a tri-county total of about 17,500 in 2006.

The avalanche of filings has overwhelmed the civil courts and prolonged the pain of foreclosure for all: Homeowners are living in limbo; banks are losing money; and the ripple effects are felt from condo associations that can't collect dues to municipal governments that must spend scarce resources to shutter or maintain abandoned houses.