The Massachusetts Appeals Court, in a Rule 1:28 decision, has once again reaffirmed its holdings in Sullivan v. Kondaur Capital Corp., 85 Mass.App.Ct. 202 (2014) and Shea v. Federal Natl' Mort. Assn., et al., 87 Mass.App.Ct. 901 (2015), that the Mortgage Electronic...
Mortgage Litigation
Ninth Circuit Denies Class Action For Allegedly Fraudulent Mortgage Modification Delays and Subsequent Foreclosures
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has refused to reinstate a putative class-action suit accusing numerous banks and other mortgage servicers of fraudulently enticing mortgagors into applying for mortgage loan modifications to continue collecting...
U.S. Supreme Court Rules That Underwater Mortgages Cannot Be “Stripped Off”
While the American economy has shown tentative signs of stabilization and recovery, the nation's courts continue to grapple with legal questions that emanate from the Great Recession and the bursting of the so-called "housing bubble." In one notable development, the...
SJC Interprets and Upholds ‘Obsolete Mortgage’ Statute
Where a mortgage states the term of its underlying debt but includes no separate statement of its own term, the two are one-and-the-same, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (the "SJC") has decided in an opinion interpreting and upholding the so-called "obsolete...
U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Cases Regarding Mortgage “Strip Offs”
While the American economy has shown tentative signs of stabilization and recovery, the nation's courts continue to grapple with legal questions that emanate from the Great Recession and the bursting of the so-called "housing bubble." In one notable development, the...
Massachusetts Appeals Court Upholds MERS Mortgage System
The Massachusetts Appeals Court has joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in upholding the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. ("MERS") business model under Massachusetts law. Explicitly referencing the First Circuit's decision in Culhane...
Federal Circuits Split on Required Action to Effect Rescission under Truth-in-Lending Act
The federal Circuit Courts of Appeal are split on the important question of what is required of a consumer who claims not to have received the proper disclosures from a lender and who wishes to rescind the loan within the three-year period following the closing. The...
RESPA Qualified Written Requests May Not Be Used to Create Foreclosure Defenses
The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts has held that failure to respond to a purported Qualified Written Request, sent to a loan servicer pursuant to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, 12 U.S.C. 2605 et seq. ("RESPA"), cannot serve...
Try Title Action May Be Available Against Mortgagees, Or Not
A decision from the Land Court has muddied the waters regarding whether a mortgagor can raise a claim under the Massachusetts try title statute against a mortgagee. A 2012 Land Court decision by Judge Robert B. Foster found that the try title statute was unavailable...
No Implied Covenant Before Mortgage Note Executed
Massachusetts' implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing does not apply to negotiations and contract preparations for a mortgage and accompanying promissory note, the First Circuit has held. In Latson v. Plaza Home Mortgage, Inc., the plaintiffs filed suit...
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