Group Assisting Foreclosure Victims has been Booked for Trade Violations
A volunteer group consisting of lawyers set up in Florida to assist foreclosure victims has been booked for trade violations. Events started rolling with a Larry King Live (July 30th show). A woman representing Florida Attorneys Saving Homes came on to the show with a family battling foreclosure. She put forward their case.
This group named FLASH set up a hotline promising legal assistance without charging fees in the first week of June. Since then they have been receiving daily calls numbering 30 to 50. After the show another group using the same name has also started getting calls from borrowers.
This has led to the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes Inc (also known as FLSAH) to accuse the other FLASH comprising of lawyers of infringing trade mark regulations. Recently a demand letter has been sent – this being the first step towards taking legal action.
Kent Spuhler of Florida Legal Services in Tallahassee said, “We’ll continue to try to work things out, but with this demand letter we’re probably headed to court. A single event spurred some misguided calls, but there really isn’t any confusion in the community about this project. It’s catching on like wildfire.”
The Florida Bar, the Florida Bar Foundation joined forces with Legal Forces. Sphulers explained, “We didn’t do a name search beforehand because we were so busy working out the mechanics of it. Then somebody said something about what we were going to call it. Afterwards, we found out about (the alliance’s use of FLASH) but knew it wasn’t a legal problem.”
The group of Tallahassee is a non-profit body seeking to impart education about making homes safe and protecting families in danger from financial pitfalls. In a press release the president of the group, who is also the CEO, Leslie Chapman-Henderson, said that the failure of the group consisting of lawyers to respect the fundamental points about use of trademark is causing the consumers to be confused. Spuhler commented, “We don’t believe we’ve committed any trademark violation. There are about 2,000 organizations that use FLASH in their names.”
Although the names are same the objectives of the two FLASH groups are dissimilar. The alliance body educates the sufferers while the lawher’s body gives legal help. The latter has come forward with many offers of adjustment so as to peacefully co-exist but so far the deadlock has not been resolved.