New foreclosure bill update! SB 1271

Direct from Tom Farley, CEO & Chief Lobbyist for Arizona Association of Realtors:

Anti-Deficiency Law Update
SB 1271 has been getting a lot of press lately as it will have serious and unintended consequences for many real estate owners facing foreclosure in Arizona. In light of this the original sponsor of the bill, Senator Steve Pierce, has asked the legislature and the Governor for an immediate repeal of the law which is slated to go into effect at the end of September. The state's original anti-deficiency language has been inserted into two budget bills (HB 2008 and SB 1024) currently being debated by the legislature which would have the effect on nullifying the passage of SB 1271. HB 2008 has quickly passed the Arizona House of Representatives. SB 1024 is awaiting final vote which could happen August 8th or on the 10th. If for some reason, the Senate Bill fails on final vote, we will immediately focus on our next effort to repeal the law. The banking lobby and at least one member of the legislature are pushing for an amendment to SB 1271, instead of repeal, that would allow it to still apply retroactively to loans already in existence. We have been advised that this action would ultimately be unconstitutional if not unjust. Stay tuned for more updates on our efforts to repeal SB 1271 through the bills cited above.

I have found this newspaper article was pretty good at explaining the consequences of this law in basic terms:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/07/26/20090726foreclosurelaw0726.html