Skip to Content (Press Enter)

Skip to Nav (Press Enter)

Mortgages

The following summaries are of recent published decisions of the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The summaries are presented without regard to whether Severson & Werson represented a party in the case.

Subscribe to California Appellate Tracker

Thank you for your desire to subscribe to Severson & Werson’s Appellate Tracker Weblog. In order to subscribe, you must provide a valid name and e-mail address. This too will be retained on our server. When you push the “subscribe button”, we will send an electronic mail to the address that you provided asking you to confirm your subscription to our Weblog. By pushing the “subscribe button”, you represent and warrant that you are over the age of 18 years old, are the owner/authorized user of that e-mail address, and are entitled to receive e-mails at that address. Our weblog will retain your name and e-mail address on its server, or the server of its web host. However, we won’t share any of this information with anyone except the Firm’s employees and contractors, except under certain extraordinary circumstances described on our Privacy Policy and (About The Consumer Finance Blog/About the Appellate Tracker Weblog) Page. NOTICE AND AGREEMENT REGARDING E-MAILS AND CALLS/TEXT MESSAGES TO LAND-LINE AND WIRELESS TELEPHONES: By providing your contact information and confirming your subscription in response to the initial e-mail that we send you, you agree to receive e-mail messages from Severson & Werson from time-to-time and understand and agree that such messages are or may be sent by means of automated dialing technology. If you have your email forwarded to other electronic media, including text messages and cellular telephone by way of VoIP, internet, social media, or otherwise, you agree to receive my messages in that way. This may result in charges to you. Your agreement and consent also extend to any other agents, affiliates, or entities to whom our communications are forwarded. You agree that you will notify Severson & Werson in writing if you revoke this agreement and that your revocation will not be effective until you notify Severson & Werson in writing. You understand and agree that you will afford Severson & Werson a reasonable time to unsubscribe you from the website, that the ability to do so depends on Severson & Werson’s press of business and access to the weblog, and that you may still receive one or more emails or communications from weblog until we are able to unsubscribe you.

Defendant initially violated HBOR by refusing to consider plaintiff's loan modification application because only his deceased wife was the borrower on the loan, but defendant cured its violation after suit was filed by canceling the pending foreclosure, accepting and review plaintiff's loan modification application, and offering him a trial payment plan intended to lead to a loan modification.  Thinking he… Read More

The statute of limitations for rescission enforcement actions under the Truth in Lending Act is the state law limitations period for suit on a written contract—six years in Washington, four years in California. Read More

Plaintiff homeowner stated a viable wrongful foreclosure claim against mortgage loan servicer who told plaintiff that it would not accept plaintiff's offer to reinstate the loan, even though the offer was made more than 5 business days before the trustee's sale. Read More

Section 9 of the standard-form deed of trust, which allows the lender to take steps to preserve its interest in the property (including defending litigation) and charge the cost of doing so to the borrower, is in the nature of an indemnity provision under which the lender could add its litigation expenses to the principal debt secured by the deed… Read More

Borrower stated viable Fair Debt Collection Practices Act claim against loan servicer, which acquired the loan while it was in default, included improper fees in the reinstatement amount it quoted, and kept treating the loan as delinquent and pursued non-judicial foreclosure after the borrower had paid the reinstatement sum in full. Read More

A trial court should have given mortgage plaintiff further leave to amend a complaint to allege that party who foreclosed lacked any legal interest in the deed of trust, due to errors in the property’s chain of title. Read More

Lenders and loan servicers who act to collect on conventional real-estate-secured loans are "debt collectors" for purposes of California's Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Read More

A loan servicer owes a borrower no duty of care in handling his home loan modification application; also, unless the borrower documents a change in financial circumstances, dual tracking prohibitions do not apply to second/subsequent loan modification requests, even if the lender accepts, processes, and reviews the later loan applications.   Read More

Lender's alleged failure to (1) provide reinstatement amounts in response to a defaulted borrower's request or (2) respond to plaintiff's claimed tender of arrearages under the deed of trust, were protected activity under the Anti-SLAPP statute, but only because they occurred in the context of the borrower’s bankruptcy proceeding.   Read More

A loan servicer violates Civil Code section 2923.6 by sending the borrower a loan modification denial letter erroneously stating that the borrower has only 15 days to appeal the denial.  Read More

A creditor seeking to void a transfer under the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act loses if the transferee proves that it gave reasonably equivalent value for the transfer and lacked fraudulent intent and actual, not constructive, knowledge of the transferor’s fraudulent intent.  Read More

If a junior lien securing a non-recourse debt is wiped out by a senior creditor’s foreclosure sale before the debtor files a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, the sold-out junior lienholder is not entitled to a recourse claim against the Chapter 11 bankruptcy estate.  Read More

Borrowers’ Fair Debt Collection Practices Act claims arising from non-judicial foreclosure actions were properly dismissed, except for claim under 15 USC § 1692f(6) for threatening foreclosure when no right to foreclose existed.  Read More

A home loan borrower could survive summary judgment on her claims for breach of contract and violation of the unfair competition law based on deceptive processing and denial of the borrower's loan modification applications, since servicer should have known from the beginning that borrower’s loan exceeded eligibility guidelines yet reviewed her three times anyway.  Read More

The dismissal of a borrower’s fourth foreclosure delay lawsuit is affirmed based on res judicata and a lack of merit in the borrower’s securitization arguments.  Read More

1 2