Upcoming Foreclosures - My cousin, who lives in Florida told me that it is a homestead state.?

My cousin, who lives in Florida told me that it is a homestead state.?

She informed me that the banks could not take her house because of the homestead laws. Yet recently I saw statistics of foreclosures in Florida. And they were in the double digit range. Would someone clarify what the advantage of being in a homestead state is since my understanding seams to be erroneous.

Public Comments

It is a homestead state but that doesn't mean they can't foreclose on your home if you don't pay the loan. http://www.therieault.com/florida%20homestead%20act.htm here is some info on it
your home can still be foreclosed on if you are in default of your mortgage, but it cannot be foreclosed on if you owe other creditors. here is a link to explain more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_exemption
All states have the Homestead Act. If you keep up with your loan or own it outright, a debtor can't come in and take your home away. One of the first things you do when you buy a home is file a Homestead Exemption.
yes we do have homestead in Florida. You can homestead the property if it is your primary residence. Advantage is your property taxes. Normally our property taxes are based on comparable sold properties in a certain area from the previous year. With a second home or investment property the property taxes can go up as much as the property value increases. A homestead property however can only increase for tax value a certain percentage per year - which is normally lower than the increase in property value. Also you have a property tax deductible with homestead property of currently $ 50,000. That means for property tax the assessed value will be deducted by $ 50,000 homestead exemption. With loosing your home in bank foreclosure however - homestead will only help indirectly. A lot of banks are trying to help those owners to stay in their homes and offer programs to the owners to keep their homes. But if none of those programs work for the property owner - even a homestead property will go into bank foreclosure - unfortunately.