Citizens Property Insurance Corp.'s chairman on Monday called for an independent review of a $350 million loan program designed to coax private companies to take some of the state-backed insurer's riskier policies.

Following a series of queries that included a letter from the incoming House speaker, Citizens Chairman Carlos Lacasa called for outside experts to review the plan, known as the surplus note program. Backers say the program could reduce the ranks in Citizens by up to 350,000 policies.

A Honduran couple living in Key Biscayne with their children are entitled to a homestead exemption because there's no question their kids live in the home permanently, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case that may affect thousands of other families.

By a unanimous vote, the state's highest court rejected arguments from attorneys representing former Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia, who denied a homestead exemption to David Andonie and his wife in 2006.

A trio of Florida Supreme Court justices girded for battle this week following last week's announcement by state Republicans that they will try to take the "activist" justices down.

The fight over efforts to remove Justices R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince went from backwater to front burner this week with attorneys groups and former colleagues jumping to the jurists' defense in the face of a recall campaign now officially blessed by the Republican Party of Florida.

Many municipal pension funds were in trouble long before the Great Recession, according to a study released Wednesday by a Tallahassee think tank that's been tracking pension health for years.

Following up on a series of annual reports, the LeRoy Collins Institute, an independent, nonprofit research organization housed at Florida State University, concluded that years of overly optimistic projections and higher than expected costs have left many local pension funds in serious financial straits.

Housing figures released Wednesday were good news for Florida, with prices and sales both increasing in August from a year earlier, according to statistics released by Florida Realtors.

Sales of single family homes in Florida rose 10.8 percent in August from a year earlier, while pending sales --those signed but not closed upon --jumped 40.2 percent from August 2011. Pending sales tend to close within 90 days.

Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater on Tuesday cautioned the state-backed property insurer to proceed with caution as it considers spending $350 million upfront to reduce its number of customers.

Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the governor and Cabinet, Atwater said he is generally supportive of efforts by Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to reduce its policy count by up to 350,000 by offering low-interest loans to companies willing to take on some of the business. Citizens now handles more than 1.4 million policies.