The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal recently held that the priority between two assignees of notes secured by the same mortgage due to fraud is determined by Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code and not the recording statute applicable to assignments of mortgage. The Court held that the transferee that first perfected its interest in a note and related mortgage is entitled to the priority of its interest. A copy of the opinion is available at: http://www.4dca.org/opinions/May%202015/05-06-15/4D13-3193.op.pdf. In April 2006, a borrower obtained a loan and signed a mortgage securing the loan. At closing, the borrower signed two almost identical notes for…
Posts published by “Maurice Wutscher LLP”
The attorneys of Maurice Wutscher are seasoned business lawyers with substantial experience in business law, financial services litigation and regulatory compliance. They represent consumer and commercial financial services companies, including depository and non-depository mortgage lenders and servicers, as well as mortgage loan investors, financial asset buyers and sellers, loss mitigation companies, third-party debt collectors, and other financial services providers. They have defended scores of putative class actions, have substantial experience in federal appellate court litigation and bring substantial trial and complex bankruptcy experience. They are leaders and influencers in their highly specialized area of law. They serve in leadership positions in industry associations and regularly publish and speak before national audiences.
The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, recently held that the statute of limitations does not bar an action to cancel a mortgage based upon a forged deed. A copy of the opinion is available here. The plaintiff was the administrator of her deceased father’s estate. The decedent and his sister (the “aunt”) inherited from their mother a house in Brooklyn as tenants-in-common. Several years later, in May 2000, the aunt executed a quitclaim deed conveying her one-half interest in the property to her daughter (the “cousin”). In February 2001, the cousin recorded a corrective deed that purported to…
As big data grows, so does the scale of TCPA violations, and with that the settlements; one of the largest in TCPA history was in the news last week. In a California district court, attorneys who guided consumers in suing a bank for a $32 million settlement were denied a bid to increase their fees to $8 million. The settlement was the largest TCPA deal to be approved at the time, settling the case in which the plaintiffs claimed they had received automated phone calls from the defendants without their consent. However, this past July saw a $75.5 million settlement granted preliminary approval in…