On March 21, 2011, a Columbus, Georgia jury sent a very loud message to loan servicers in the form of a $21 million verdict and punitive damage award against PHH Mortgage, an affiliate of Coldwell Banker Mortgage.
California has some of the most generous, pro borrower anti-mortgage loan deficiency statutes in the country. Here in one place they are listed and briefly described. This post is not a substitute for specific legal advice, however, and if you think you may have a deficiency exposure, you should see a qualified real estate lawyer to help you plan a course of action.
The attacks on the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (“MERS”) continue unabated at all levels. In the case MERS v. Johnston (Rutland County Superior Court case no. 420-6-09 Rdcv) another Court has held that MERS doesn’t have standing to complete a foreclosure of a mortgage which did not specifically name it as the mortgagee, or which secures a promissory note that didn’t specifically name MERS as payee. The Vermont opinion relies heavily on the Landmark National Bank v. Kesler decision from the Kansas Supreme Court issued in September of this year. The Kesler decision, in turn, relied heavily on the 2005 Nebraska Supreme Court decision Mortgage Elec. Reg. Systems v. Nebraska Dept. of Banking, 270 Neb. 529, 530, 704 N.W.2d 784 (2005).
If I had to guess, this issue seems headed for the US Supreme Court, though a few Federal Courts of Appeal are probably going to have to weigh in before SCOTUS get turns its eye to it. In the mean time, click on the article hearing to learn more about how some courts are handling the analysis.
On August 28, 2009 the Kansas Supreme Court handed foreclosure advocates a major victory in the case Landmark National Bank v. Kesler. The decision appears to be a fairly wonkish and dryly academic legal essay–and it is–but the implications could be monumental and could have some effect on more than 60 million mortgages in the United [...]
One of the most common questions that people considering filing for bankruptcy ask is whether they’ll be able to keep their car. The Ninth Circuit has recently–as in this week–changed the rules on that issue. The case is Dumont v. Ford Motor Company (In re Dumont), 9th Cir, 2009, No. 08-60002). The answer now is: It depends. [...]
My clients get tired of hearing me say it, but if the mantra for real estate values is location, location, location, then the mantra for bankruptcy petition and schedule preparation is disclose, disclose, disclose. This isn’t Chicken Little screaming about the sky falling; it’s real and it can have real consequences. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals recently [...]
So what’s a “predatory loan?” Well, people who live in Massachusetts now know because on Tuesday of this past week the Massachusetts Supreme Court weighed in on the issue. (Here’s the Massachusetts Attorney General’s press release.) I’m pretty sure that for all the non-lawyer readers out there, reading case law is only slightly more interesting [...]
BOTSFORD, J. The Commonwealth, acting through the Attorney General, commenced this consumer protection enforcement action against the defendant Fremont Investment & Loan and its parent company, Fremont General Corporation (collectively, Fremont), claiming that Fremont, in originating and servicing certain “subprime”(3) mortgage loans between 2004 and 2007 in Massachusetts, acted unfairly and deceptively in violation of [...]
