Lauren Raines is a member of the Banking and Financial Services and Real Estate practice groups. She divides her time between transactional and litigation matters and regularly handles both commercial lending transactions and financial services litigation. This hybrid practice has allowed Lauren to better serve her transactional clients by advising them on the potential areas of conflict that could arise later in litigation, and to effectively advocate for her litigation clients due to her broad understanding of real estate principles.
On the litigation side, Lauren has successfully handled countless contested commercial and consumer mortgage foreclosure trials for banks and mortgage servicers across the state of Florida. Lauren routinely defends her clients in a wide array of claims arising under state and federal regulations, including the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), as well as regulations arising under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and claims regarding unfair and deceptive trade practices and fraud. She also has experience handling lender liability claims, usury actions, lien priority claims, fraudulent transfer claims, and violations of federal and Florida consumer protection statutes. Lauren also regularly represents merchant cash advance companies in enforcement actions, bankruptcy litigation and defending against usury, RICO, preference and lien avoidance claims.
For her transactional clients, Lauren handles a wide variety of commercial lending transactions, including construction loans, loans secured by retail centers, industrial facilities and multi-family housing, and asset-based loans. She also handles loan assumptions, defeasances, loan workouts, debt restructurings, forbearances and regularly advises clients on Florida documentary stamp tax issues related to complex lending transactions.