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On October 23, 2026, Florida’s Sixth District Court of Appeal reversed the foreclosure judgment against Robert Dwayne Harris, ruling that the case must return to the lower court for a new trial. A Florida homeowner has won an appeal against a foreclosure judgment after he received notice of the trial only after the proceedings had concluded.
According to the court’s opinion available on Justia in Robert Dwayne Harris v. Nationstar Mortgage, LLC, the mortgage company acknowledged that Harris had not received timely notice of the trial, depriving him of an opportunity to present his defences. The ruling restores his opportunity to contest the foreclosure, although it does not itself resolve the underlying dispute. A significant development in the appeal was Nationstar Mortgage’s concession that the judgment had been entered without adequate notice to Harris. The company agreed that the case needed to be sent back for a new foreclosure trial. The appeals court accepted that concession and focused on the procedural defect rather than examining every argument Harris had raised about the underlying foreclosure dispute.
Harris had been served with the foreclosure complaint and had filed pleadings in response, according to the appellate opinion. The case arose from a foreclosure action brought by Nationstar Mortgage, LLC, against Harris in Charlotte County, Florida. Harris appealed the final foreclosure judgment, the denial of his request for a rehearing and the denial of his motion to stop the foreclosure sale. However, despite participating in the case at that stage, he did not receive notice of the foreclosure trial until after the trial had already taken place. He subsequently brought the notice problem to the attention of the trial court on two occasions, including through a motion for rehearing. The lower court denied that motion without providing a detailed explanation in its order. The opinion emphasised the importance of notice and the opportunity to be heard in legal proceedings. It cited the principle that a judgment obtained without notice or an opportunity to be heard is void. The court also referred to Florida decisions recognising that notifying people with a legal interest in a case is an essential part of procedural due process. These protections are intended to ensure that parties affected by a court decision have a meaningful opportunity to put forward their claims and defences before a judgment is made. In Harris’s case, the lack of timely notice prevented him from presenting his defences at the foreclosure trial.
This meant Harris was unable to attend the trial with proper notice and present his arguments against the foreclosure before the judgment was entered. Harris then challenged the decisions before the Sixth District Court of Appeal, arguing that the foreclosure judgment should not stand when he had not been given a fair opportunity to be heard.