Massachusetts Foreclosures In Jeopardy

Defects in Massachusetts foreclosures are estimated to run into the thousands. The Land Court recently reaffirmed its earlier Ibanez decision which ruled that mortgages cannot be transferred retroactively.   This is one of the several items on my Massachusetts Foreclosure Defense Checklist.

You may have heard of securitized mortgages, where mortgage loans are bundled together by the thousands into one pooled trust, and slices of ownerships are sold off in Wall Street. The bundling process first requires contracts stating that the mortgages will be transferred, and then it requires the actual transfer.

The trusts argued that a contract right to the mortgage transfer, coupled with an after-the-foreclosure, retroactive transferring assignment, was good enough.

But the Land Court disagreed, repeating that earlier decision which noted that Massachusetts state law requires an existing mortgage transfer into the foreclosing party before the foreclosure can take place. Retroactive transfers aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

The decision is being appealed, but the trusts have already lost twice. If you were wrongfully foreclosed upon, or if you are in the middle of a wrongful foreclosure, you have a claim for damages and attorney fees. Call me immediately.

Related posts:

1. Retroactive Mortgage Assignments Not Effective In Massachusetts
2. Massachusetts Mortgage Foreclosures Severely Backlogged
3. Let’s Treat Massachusetts As A Judicial Foreclosure State