U.S. BANK v. ANTONIO IBANEZ - FORECLOSURE FRAUD

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Massachusetts Home Seizures Threatened in Loan Case: Mortgages

Massachusetts Home Seizures Threatened in Loan Case: Mortgages


“If you’re going to take someone’s home away, you’ve got to prove you have the right to do it, and you have to follow the law when you do it,” Atty Glenn Russell said.

Busines Week-

The highest court in Massachusetts is poised to rule as soon as this month on a foreclosure case that could lead to a surge in claims from home owners seeking to overturn seizures.

The justices are deciding whether to uphold a lower court ruling that gave a Boston home back to Henrietta Eaton after Sam Levine, a 25-year-old Harvard Law School student, argued in front of the nation’s oldest appellate court that the loan servicer made mistakes when it foreclosed because it didn’t hold the note proving she was obliged to pay the mortgage.

“If the Massachusetts court says this defense works, that would have a huge ripple effect across the country,” said Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California.

[BUSINESS WEEK]

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Massachusetts Home Seizures Threatened in EATON vs FANNIE MAE: Mortgages

Massachusetts Home Seizures Threatened in EATON vs FANNIE MAE: Mortgages


The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justices signaled last month they may rule in favor of Eaton when they asked parties in the case to submit briefs arguing whether such a decision should be applied retroactively or only to future lending. If retroactive, it would cloud the titles of the 40,000 Massachusetts properties seized in the last five years and while the ruling only applies to the state, it could serve as a model for homeowners trying to overturn foreclosures in other states.

Bloomberg-

The highest court in Massachusetts is poised to rule as soon as this month on a foreclosure case that could lead to a surge in claims from home owners seeking to overturn seizures.

The justices are deciding whether to uphold a lower court ruling that gave a Boston home back to Henrietta Eaton after Sam Levine, a 25-year-old Harvard Law School student, argued in front of the nation’s oldest appellate court that the loan servicer made mistakes when it foreclosed because it didn’t hold the note proving she was obliged to pay the mortgage.

“If the Massachusetts court says this defense works, that would have a huge ripple effect across the country,” said Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California.

[BLOOMBERG]

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REQUIRED READING: Marie McDonnell’s Supplemental Brief in EATON vs. FANNIE MAE

REQUIRED READING: Marie McDonnell’s Supplemental Brief in EATON vs. FANNIE MAE


If you want to know where the bodies are buried, look no further. Here are a few snips from Marie’s brief:

In what has become common parlance among those
investigating these securitization failures (including
the Securities and Exchange Commission and the
Department of Justice), we refer to this type of
transfer as an “A to D” assignment because it skips
over parties “B” and “C” and creates a “wild deed
(especially in title theory states such as
Massachusetts).

The assignment of mortgage is the “breeder
document” from which all other paperwork necessary
to bring the foreclosure action; notice the sale;
obtain judgment; and transfer title depends.

The Eaton Defect” as described in our amicus brief occurs when an entity, such as Green Tree Servicing LLC takes the mortgage by assignment and prosecutes a foreclosure in its own name when it neither owns nor holds the note.

The Ibanez Defect” as described in this amicus brief occurs when an entity, such as Option One Mortgage Corporation, sells the loan for securitization purposes and later, after the loan has been sold multiple times, assigns the Note and Mortgage (or just the Mortgage) directly to the Trustee of the Issuing Entity (securitized trust).

Supreme Judicial Court
FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
NO. SJC-11041
SUFFOLK COUNTY

HENRIETTA EATON,
PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,

v.

FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION & ANOTHER,
DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.

ON APPEAL FROM AN INTERLOCUTORY ORDER OF THE SUFFOLK SUPERIOR COURT

SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF OF
AMICUS CURIAE MARIE MCDONNELL, CFE

[ipaper docId=80055062 access_key=key-2jczy7ahsbjdgr7u6vbg height=600 width=600 /]

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Property Title Trouble in Non-Judicial Foreclosure States: The Ibanez Time Bomb? – Elizabeth Renuart

Property Title Trouble in Non-Judicial Foreclosure States: The Ibanez Time Bomb? – Elizabeth Renuart


Elizabeth Renuart

Albany Law School
December 5, 2011

Abstract:     
The economic crisis gripping the United States began when large numbers of homeowners defaulted on poorly underwritten subprime mortgage loans. Demand from Wall Street seduced mortgage lenders, brokers, and other players to churn out mortgage loans in extraordinary numbers. Securitization, the process of utilizing mortgage loans to back investment instruments, not only fanned the fire; the parties to these deals often handled and transferred the legally important documents that secure the resulting investments — the loan notes and mortgages — in a careless manner.

The consequences of this behavior are now becoming evident. All over the country, courts are scrutinizing whether the parties initiating foreclosures against homeowners legally possess the authority to repossess those homes. When the authority is absent, foreclosure sales may be reversed. The concern about authority to foreclose is most acute in the majority of states where foreclosures occur with little or no judicial oversight before the sale, such as Massachusetts. Due to the decision in U.S. Bank N.A. v. Ibanez, in which the Supreme Judicial Court voided two foreclosure sales where the foreclosing parties did not hold the mortgage, Massachusetts is the focal jurisdiction where an important conflict is unfolding.

This article explores the extent to which the Ibanez ruling may have traction in other nonjudicial foreclosure states and the likelihood that clear title to foreclosed properties is jeopardized by shoddy handling of notes and mortgages. I focused on Arizona, California, Georgia, and Nevada because they permit nonjudicial foreclosures and they are experiencing high seriously delinquent foreclosure rates. After comparing the law in these states to that of Massachusetts, I conclude that Ibanez should be persuasive authority in the four nonjudicial foreclosure states highlighted herein. However, property title trouble resulting from defective foreclosures may be more limited in Arizona and Nevada. The article also provides a roadmap for others to assess the extent to which title to properties purchased at foreclosure sales or from lenders’ REO inventories might be defective in other states. Finally, the article addresses the potential consequences of reversing foreclosure sales and responds to the securitization industry’s worry about homeowners getting free houses.

CLICK IMAGE BELOW

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Guest Post: Eaton – Dividing the Mortgage Loan and Affirming the Consequent

Guest Post: Eaton – Dividing the Mortgage Loan and Affirming the Consequent


Written by Gregory M. Lemelson

In January the Massachusetts supreme judicial court held in US Bank National Association vs. Antonio Ibanez that a note holder may not foreclose on a property in order to redeem a debt, if they are not also the holder of a valid mortgage (that is to say also with a valid assignment). We outlined the details of this case and its implications in our article “Ibanez – Denying the Antecedent, Suppressing the Evidence and one big fat Red Herring” on January 11th, 2011.

The issue before the SJC in Henrietta Eaton v. Federal National Mortgage Association and Green Tree Servicing, LLC is whether the assignee of a mortgage security alone (fraudulent assignments aside), without any direct or indirect interest in or claim to the underlying debt, can seek to recover the debt through foreclosure.

Oral arguments in the case were heard on Oct. 3rd, 2011.

It is important to note that in Ibanez, the SJC was not willing to overturn long standing legal principles simply because of recent “innovation” in the way banks chose to record their security interest in real property (e.g. MERS), or because of the extraordinary liability such a ruling would have on what basically amounted to four years of mostly illegal foreclosure activity in the Commonwealth.

The Ibanez article published last January predated Eaton by some ten months, and since the SJC reviewed Eaton “sua sponte”, there was no way to know at the time, that Eaton would make it all the way to the SJC, so the following comments taken from the article are perhaps prescient:

” It is possible that from the banks perspective an invalid assignment of the note is the more serious concern for the following reasons:

1. Without first having proper ownership of the debt, the bank can not initiate any collection activity, let alone foreclosure.

2. Notes (ownership of the debt asset), may be subject to further contention in bankruptcy proceedings where many creditors have a vested interest in the assets of a defunct mortgage lender, particularly since these notes are often sold in bankruptcy for a fraction of their face value.

3. The trusts that are supposed to contain the validly conveyed notes will in fact, not actually contain them (because they are not bearer paper), thus violating the representations and warranties made to investors who purchase these securities. Therefore, it is unsecured debt, and potentially, no debt at all upon which to collect payments.

6. Even if the notes obtain a valid conveyance, or confirmation of conveyance at a later date, it is still may be impossible to place them into the MBS’s:

a. It will have been longer than 90 days (the typical expiry period to transfer assets into the trust)

b. If it is a foreclosure matter, the loan is in default (the PSA’s do not allow for the addition of defaulted loans)

c. Any effort on the part of the trust to insert old or defaulted loans would jeopardize the trusts favorable REMIC status – thus further harming already impaired returns.”

As pointed out in the Ibanez article, clear title to the property is important. If the assignment of the mortgage is invalid, then there is a “cloud on title”. The banks recognizing this, brought Ibanez before the land court of their own volition in order to clear this “cloud on title”. One of the key mistakes counsel for Eaton made, perhaps in their effort to establish the more serious problem of legitimate possession of the note, was overlooking the validity of the Mortgage assignment, (still incredibly important) which, as with most securitized loans, was so clearly fraudulent (see Amicus brief of Marie McDonnell). Incidentally, this was of particular interest to the court during oral arguments, however, because the issue was never raised by Eaton’s counsel in its complaint, it could not be addressed by the court. Thus the opportunity to cite the authority of Crowley v. Adams 22 Mass. 582 (1917) which concerned the fraudulent conveyance of a mortgage without a note, was lost. Within the context of discussing the assignees knowledge of the fraud, the court held:

“[the assignee] should be held to have known as to each transaction, the possession of the note was essential to an enforceable mortgage, without which neither mortgage could be effectively foreclosed.” Id. at 585.

This was a error on the part of counsel, and eliminated a potential fifth source of authority in Eaton, as we wrote in January:

“1. If there must be a perfected interest in the mortgage (according to MA law) at the time of foreclosure, then how many foreclosures have taken place in Massachusetts with the same profile as Ibanez, and are thus invalid?

2. Clear title is important – In the statement of the case, the banks actually brought the complaint before the land court as independent actions in order to “remove a cloud on the title” – thus the banks recognize that such defects are a problem for future conveyance. All MA homeowners should be worried about the same (discussed further below).

3. To foreclose on a mortgage securing property in the commonwealth, one must be the holder of the mortgage. To be the holder of the mortgage, the bank must:

a. Be the original mortgagee

b. Be an assignee under a valid assignment of the mortgage

c. It is not sufficient to possess the mortgagor’s promissory note (bearer paper). Apparently most if not all securitized mortgages were endorsed in “blank”, in other words to the bearer.

4. The notice requirements set forth in G.L.c. 244, ss 14 unequivocally requires that the foreclosure notice must identify the present holder of the mortgage. This likely was not the case in past foreclosures in MA. For future foreclosure actions the question is can the real mortgage holder be found and will they cooperate in assigning the security interest?

5. Assignees of a mortgage must hold a written statement conveying the mortgage that satisfied the statute of Frauds or even the most basic elements of contractual requirements.

AG Coakley acknowledges that “the securitization regime was required to conform to state law prior to foreclosing, to ensure simply that legal ownership ‘caught up’ in order that the creditor foreclose legally in MA. The lenders, trustees and servicers could have done this, but apparently elected not to, perhaps on a ‘Massive Scale’ ” Saying that they “could have done this” within the context of MA law is one thing, within the context of IRS tax code, or NY trust law, is another.”

Further the article points out that a holder of the mortgage without the note, really only holds the security instrument in trust for the debt holder (thus anticipating Eaton), as pointed out in the following taken from the Ibanez article:

“4. The holder of the mortgage holds the mortgage in trust for the purchaser of the note, who has an equitable right to obtain an assignment of the mortgage, which may be accomplished by filing an action in court and obtaining an equitable order of assignment. If the average MBS has 5,000 notes for example, then we have to assume 5000 separate actions would have to be filed in court to ensure they are truly “Mortgage Backed Securities”, and that is only if the REMIC status isn’t jeopardized by such a revelation or action.”

However, the impasse for banks is the fact, that even if the court recognizes the authority of MERS to assign the mortgage to the foreclosing entity (usually the servicer), the following conditions still must be met:

a) The assignment must still be a valid assignment (most are not)

b) There must also be a valid assignment of the note to establish who exactly owns the debt.

The vast majority of these loans were sold into securitization trusts and are merely endorsed “in blank” (if they can even be found in the trust at all). Most schedules attached to the trust documents include little or no information on the details of the particular loans (as was the case in Ibanez), or sometimes include the address of particular properties, but no information on the barrowers, or curiously the loan amounts. Other failures include post-dated or otherwise invalid notarizations, and fraudulent signatures etc., which are all suggestive of fraud.

Given this, to speak of Eaton merely as a question over the validity of MERS and its assignments is incorrect. Even if Eaton is not affirmed by the SJC, the issue of validly conveyed notes, remains of vital importance.

That having been said, we believe the Appellants chances of prevailing are precisely zero, or maybe less. Taken together with Ibanez, this means serious problems for the bond holders in these securitization trusts and their bank administrators. With all the nuance of every day speak we could muster, we think it is put best by saying just; some of the debt-servants might escape. That isn’t to say that all measures won’t be taken to try to prevent this outcome.

On contemporary Pheronic thinking and the Pyramids that debt-servants build

We believe that this situation lends itself to the possibility of violence, as tragic an outcome as that is and would be. On June 3rd, 2011 we published our follow up to the Ibanez article entitled simply “On the ethics of mortgage loan default“. Four days later, the Essex county registrar of deeds John O’Brian, who we quote in the article, stopped recording fraudulent mortgage assignments (which many if not most are). It seems logical that this would be a “wake-up” call to the average homeowner, particularly since other registrars are prepared to follow suit. With the registrar’s decision, it has become a fact that title may no longer be recordable and ownership is in question.  As it turns out, the homeowner who faithfully sends in monthly mortgage payments for years or decades (in an effort to “do the right thing”), may have no more clear ownership rights in the related property than a perfect stranger.

As the article “On the ethics of mortgage loan default” spread throughout the Internet with countless links and references, we were surprised to find comments that included (not unlike the allegory of the cave) the desire that the author “be shot“. We were equally surprised when the Hacktivist group “Anonymous” (which was not our target audience either) featured the article prominently in several of their sites.

shadows_on_the_wall_3It has been said “the rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender”. Perhaps in our Naiveté, we did not understand the sensitivity around the suggestion that a servant might want to be free one day. Nor did we recognize that the powerful human inclination to denial might elicit more than just a passive reaction.  Like the prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all – later puts their life in danger from those who remain in the cave. Yet, the source of the light is truth and intelligence and those who would act prudently must see it.

These implications give rise to powerful questions in the current context. One such question regards the difference between a debt and a moral obligation? Why do we confuse the two so often in our society? Such that those who seek forgiveness of debt, are made to feel as if they are violating a moral code, or a cultural taboo? Perhaps the explanation lies in a more clear definition of the two. A moral obligation is something that can be forgiven with some flexibility, there is hardly exactness involved.

A monetary debt on the other hand can be calculated with the accuracy and immutability of math and the related science of accounting, and grown with the power of compounded interest, and therefore, in proper monetary debt, exist the possibility of subjugation in perpetuity, or at least for the entire natural life of the debtor.

Oddly, our society adds insult to injury in this failing of human civilization, and as if this dreadful revelation were not enough, adds on top of these accurately calculated and compounded financial obligations, the fallacy of a moral obligation, and in so doing the debt-servant is made to feel guilt regarding his moral character as well as his failure to pay.

When this sleight of hand is wedded to exhaustion (a pre-existing condition of many debt-servants), the odds of one actually fighting back against such a system, corrupt though it may be, are only minute. It must have been a genius who figured out that slavery with chains is inefficient. If a human could be conditioned to believe he is a free man, when he is not, and that already disillusioned he might be convinced that he is also a rich man, when he is not, then chains and their related complications are wholly unnecessary. All that is necessary then is to lower his idea of freedom and wealth substantially, and provide him with cut-rate imitations.

Under these circumstances, the average man would in fact work extraordinary hours, even if his paycheck was essentially diminished to less than zero by his existing debts (thus requiring him to take on new ones), and if by chance he was able to save, those funds too would be safely transferred to the hands of strangers (through “innovations” such as 401K’s, which could be convenient deducted from his paycheck electronically and instantly). These strangers are there to help the debt-servant loose what meager savings might be possible through sub-par investments (like internet stocks) which he never understood, but which is broker was always paid for trading.

Notably, this shell game can never be revealed to a debt-servant, because then he would understand that he is not really a free man, even though the real law is “…not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts”, and yet this inclination of the heart is often resisted, even with violence. Nonetheless, In this law of the heart lies “a desire” which is so great that it over powers all other human constructs, including offensive debts.

In this respect, surely a few folks in Europe must have believed that the entire trade in chained slaves made the United States look like an economically and operationally primitive bunch – for the cost of that variety of servant is actually much higher, and had a far smaller pool of candidates, namely those with a particular tint to their skin. Yet, telling someone that they are inferior based merely on the color of their skin is a hard sell year after year. Conversely, telling someone they are free, when they have never tasted real freedom because they were born into debt, is easier to maintain, because it deals with more subtle issues, and the likelihood of confusion with moral obligation, and exploits the power of human denial.

The earliest evidence regarding market places and trade indicate that if you have something to sell that is of far lesser value than you are indicating, than it is wise to have the greatest physical distance possible between yourself and your counterpart – for in such a trade lies the inherent possibility of a violent reaction to the discovery on the part of the unsuspecting buyer, particularly when accurate accounts of credit and debt are kept and ruthlessly enforced. Some of the oldest recorded documents in history are of this variety; they are surprisingly, accounts of credit and debt. Perhaps human history is really a history of subjugation then. Cultural anthropologists are quite familiar with this idea of credit and debt in (even ancient) market places. It’s an old story. However, Americans are bread as consumers, not as economic or cultural anthropologist, because in that knowledge rests power, and power, by definition must belong to a coterie. For the greater the number of those subdued, the greater the power of the few who would subdue, just as with money, power deals only in transfers.

That is why the average American home owner is not allowed to have the true owner of their mortgage debts revealed – they are the counter party to an impolite deal. In these trades great profits were made, and in the pricing of the assets, great misrepresentations regarding intrinsic value. Wealth destruction therefore is a misleading expression in describing what happened; the accurate term is wealth transfer. During the housing “Pyramid” (this term is far more accurate than “bubble”, because it accurately describes an order) one of the greatest logical errors of all time was sold; that the intrinsic value of a home, which had within it the possibility of calculating (accurately) fair price was tied instead to a hyper speculative measure, that which is inherently impossible to price with any degree of accuracy, and which is immaterial; our notion of an ideal. As one might imagine, no price is too high to live an “ideal” – think of it as a seller’s paradise. After, a difficult stock market collapse, and an even more difficult terrorist attack, why would anyone be interested in mere stocks or bonds? After all the very place where these electronic slips are traded was very nearly destroyed. This new investment was allegedly concrete, and also patriotic. Americans were led to believe they had “…discovered a pearl of great value”, the only security whose price could never go down – it was like a “Dream”, like an “American Dream”.

However, when loan documents were to be signed a new broker suddenly appeared.  Without any forewarning, with a name that was not before heard, or with anyone who had actually seen him, or understood how he operated, he made a subtle but powerful arrival on the scene. His name is Mr. MERS, and he instituted even greater secrecy than stock brokers and fund managers. Few have seen his physical appearance, or pulled back the curtain, it’s uninteresting anyways, because Mr. MERS is nothing more than a relational database, which only a very small fraction of the world’s population have access to (even democratically elected bodies, such as county recorders have no such access). He brokers the movements of trillions of dollars in capital. He is a construct of your trading partner, and because of his existence, you can never have a “level playing field”, or hope of a fair trade. In this brave new world, the requisite distance that precedes a bad trade, is no longer a measure of geography, it is a piece of software.

With this surreptitious matrix of relational database fields safely in place, how are all those houses, like so many stone blocks cut by ancient hands, turned into a pyramid? The answer seems self-evident; through a pyramid scheme naturally.

How would a contemporary mass exodus from such bondage look? Just as Fannie Mae and Green Tree divided the essential components of their security, It might look like ordinary debt-servants parting and dividing a sea of concrete, and traversing the depth of high rise buildings in New York, just as “by faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land”.

The people in New York are criticized for their lack of direction, the fact that they appear to be lost in a veritable desert – but they are free, and in their hearts live an almost child-like innocence that we should desire to have. After all, their predecessors spent a good deal more time lost, and through it discovered a greater revelation, one that would lay the foundation to ultimate answers.

The popular accounts promulgated by Adam Smith and the contemporary science of modern economics as we were made to understand them, rely on more than one myth regarding the engineering of debt, and its related instrument – money. These underlying misrepresentations give rise to the possibility of great abuses, for the very nature of trade, and all else which rests upon it is thus misunderstood.

There are many reasons to despair over the future of our fragile state in the US today. However, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is not one of those reasons. By upholding the rule of law, and observing the incredibly important, and notably democratic foundations of land recording practice in the commonwealth they serve as a beacon for the rest of the country to follow and impart hope. This comes at a time when such hope is in scarce supply. If it is God’s will, than the light of wisdom handed down from prior ages on this point will shine through the darkness that has been created by corrupt forces. We can only hope.

A Road Map for Homeowners: Four Authoritative Guidelines

In Massachusetts law there exists four authoritative guidelines by which property may be foreclosed upon in order to redeem a debt (Five if Crowley v. Adams is included from above). Incidentally division is not a problem for these four authorities, for they stand equally well alone as they do in combination as requirements to validly exercise the power of sale of real property. Both the spirit and the letter of these sources are echoed in laws of other states, and as such can be taken as fundamentally universal. They are as follows:

 The Common Law and the problem of Division

In Summary Eaton dealt with the following three realities of long standing Massachusetts law:

1. The assignee of a mortgage with no claim to the underlying debt cannot foreclose.

2. A mortgage separated from the debt it secures has no value in and of itself; it can only be held in trust for the note holder (naked title)

3. The trust relationship implied for the benefit of the note holder does not empower a mortgage assignee to foreclose as a “fiduciary” at any time.

It should be offensive even to the casual observer that in the case of Eaton, as would be the case for most home owners today, a valid promissory note memorializing the debt was and is missing. Who held it at the time of the foreclosure, how they obtained it, and what relationship they had if any to the appellants was and is still unknown.

Although a photo copy of the note was produced with the typical “endorsement in blank” markings, the appellants provided no document or other information indicating when the note was endorsed or who held it either then or now. The required assignments between intermediaries were never produced. Interestingly neither of the defending entities offered any testimony or other evidence in either court action to resolve these all important questions or otherwise identify the holder of the note. However, they did concede, that it was not the foreclosing entity Green Tree, LLC.

Conceivably this is because they do not know, and they do not want to know, and maybe they would even like to forget. Perhaps the note it is evidence.

Not surprisingly counsel for the appellants, despite this revelation, argued that the whereabouts and history of the promissory note was “irrelevant” and that they were entitled to foreclose nonetheless.

After a careful review of the full history of the mortgage foreclosure law in Massachusetts, as well as the related statutes and appellate decisions, The Superior court didn’t exactly see it that way – determining that no decision had ever overturned the established common law rule that a mortgage assignee must hold the note in order to enforce it through foreclosure.

Needless to say, this is of great concern to the banks, as predicted in the Ibanez article (cited above). Given the audacity of their claims, we believe it is reasonable to assume these folks would, if given the opportunity “send an orphan into slavery or sell a friend”. It has been difficult and time consuming to discover that notes were sold multiple times into multiple trust, thus creating a out-and-out pyramid of securities, upon which even more derivatives could be sold. However, something even more simple and obvious has been taking place in broad daylight, something peculiar that has been overlooked – the awkward problem of entire houses being stolen, by folks who have categorically no financial interest or otherwise is the properties.

Since this is the direct opposite of “The American Dream”, possibly the moniker “the American Nightmare” is appropriate.

Taking a step back, it is awful to consider that GreenTree, LLC had no interest in the debt, no interest in holding the property pre or post foreclosure, and had no material interest in the entire affair whatsoever, and yet they were the entity which sought to foreclose (or steal). Does it not appear as Les Trois Perdants with GreenTree, LLC acting as a shill?

For centuries promissory notes and the mortgages securing their repayment were held or assigned together. The separation of these two instruments, until recently was an anomaly and exception. Albeit no longer an anomaly, but rather the general business practice of approximately the last ten years, the SJC reaffirmed in Ibanez, that a trust implied by operation of law gave the note holder the right to sue to obtain an equitable assignment of the mortgage (U.S. Bank v. Ibanez, 458 Mass. 637 (2011) – which implies surprising possibilities (e.g. every note allegedly held in every securitized pool, would have an individual and related suit to perfect it’s claim). Implications aside, the court’s ruling established nonetheless a method by which the note holder (the person to whom the debt is owed) could be empowered to collect payment.

Incidentally, long before the bifurcation of the notes and mortgages was ubiquitous, this operation of law was periodically challenged by mortgage assignees who believed that they, as “mortgagees” could simply foreclose in their own names. However, since the 19th century, and as pointed out above, the SJC has ruled otherwise. In a series of decisions it articulated the rule that a mortgagee who has no interest in the debt underlying the note cannot conduct a foreclosure, insisting instead that that right is reserved for a holder of a valid note along with a valid mortgage.

Green Tree, LLC and their Government handlers suggest that the parts of the whole, when taken independently have the properties of the whole. That is to say in this case, that since the mortgage contains the power to foreclose, the mortgage must have with it all the powers of the note – this proposition is patently wrong, and is the fallacy of Division. The instruments may function properly together, but have incomplete authority independently – and that is exactly what long standing statute (as outlined below) has upheld.

In Summary, Ibanez brought to light that banks holding only notes have only an unsecured debt – that is to say one that could be negotiated like any other. Eaton, on the other hand brings to our attention something of far greater importance; namely that a holder of a mortgage alone (even if validly assigned), without proper ownership of the underlying debt, has in fact nothing.

Call us speculators, but if SJC affirms the lower court’s decision we have a funny feeling more than one banks share price might be adversely affected.

In the end, suggesting independent authority of the mortgage, regardless of any concern for the note or the debt is just a bad argument – it’s not only “Division” it is also a great candidate for the “Non Sequitur” argument of the year award.

 GreenTree, LLC – Affirming the Consequent

A thorough discussion of Massachusetts foreclosure law can be found in Howe v. Wilder, 77 Mass. 267 (1858). which resolved a foreclosure dispute by holding that a mortgagee, without the note, could not foreclose on the mortgage.

The court goes on to elaborate that because the party who would otherwise seek to foreclose was owed no debt, he cannot recover possession:

“For in pursuing such a suit [the party] has only the rights of a mortgagee, and is limited by the restriction imposed upon him…if nothing is found due to the plaintiff, it follows by necessary implication, from the provisions of the statute, that he can recover no judgment at all; none to have possession at common law, because that is expressly prohibited; and none under the statute, because where there is no condition to be performed, there can be no failure of performance, and no consequences can follow a contingency which in nature of things can never occur.”

Suggesting that by being an assignee of the mortgage, encompasses the right to foreclose is simply “Affirming the Consequent” and is just another logical fallacy.

 MGL 244 § 14 and the Straw Man

Bifurcating the note and the mortgage was an extraordinary circumstance when the legislature decided the subject laws. At the time these laws were ameliorated there was no reason to explicitly delineate between the debt and the mortgage instrument securing it. To argue, as Green Tree has, that the term “Mortgagee” as used in MGL 244 § 14 means also “naked mortgagee”, (a mortgage holder not having any interest in the underlying debt) is a “Straw Man“. This suggestion overlooks the historical context in which the law was authored, the rise of the mortgage securitization industry, its related practices and the compulsory changes to recording which has taken place over the last decade. It is to overlook the privatization of land records that (as far as we know), no elected official or law maker had blessed beforehand.

If Green Tree’s argument were accurate, they would not assign the mortgages to third party servicers at all, and rather continue to foreclose in MERS name (more efficient) as had been the practice until several states supreme courts ruled against it, citing the fact that MERS had no economic interest in the mortgage, which is “but an incident to the note” or “a mere technical interest” (Wolcott v. Winchester) – this of course reaffirms the spirit of the law which Henrietta Eaton asserts in her complaint.

In particular the court stated that the assignee of a “naked Mortgage”:

“…must have known that the possession of the debt was essential to an effective mortgage, and that without it he could not maintain an action to foreclose the mortgage.” Wolcott v. Winchester, 81 Mass. 462 (1860)

Despite all of this, the bright idea of the securitization industry was to simply transfer the mortgage instrument to the servicer – a related party, sort of.

If Eaton is not affirmed by the SJC, we might as well make Three Card Monte our national pastime and get rid of baseball altogether. In such a scenario handicapping the future of the US economy and the ability to affectively and profitably speculate in the CDS market will be “duck soup”.

 The authority of the UCC codified at G.L.c. 106

Because the common law involves a great deal of common sense, it just so happens to be mirrored in the Uniform Commercial Code. In particular G.L.c. 106. Article 3 of the UCC governs the negotiation and enforcement of negotiable instruments, including promissory notes secured by mortgages. Section 3-301, like the common law, provides that one must hold a (valid) note in order to validly enforce it. This rule serves the purpose of protecting consumers and barrowers against the very real possibility of double liability created when a debt is enforced. As in the current matter, Green Tree, LLC or any other mere mortgagee (even if they could get a valid assignment), would have no power or authority to discharge the actual debt. Thus if the operation of law were in any other capacity than it currently is, the mortgagee could foreclose on a property, while the debtor would still be left with a valid debt outstanding to an entirely unrelated party.

This lends itself to the requirement for transparency. During the oral arguments before the SJC, one justice asked why it mattered if the homeowner knew to whom they owed their debt. The answer is that homeowners have an important role to play in the outcome of the final settlement and discharge of their debt, and are above all the most interested party in ensuring that their payments are in fact reducing the outstanding principle balance as they are made. Otherwise, they may as well be directed to make their payments to any random stranger. It is absurd to suggest that a debtor be required to simply make payments to anybody who asks for it. That is to suggest that he is not only a debtor-servant, but also a mindless sheep – then again, perhaps that is the desired outcome.

In fact the entire matter may only be possible in a non-judicial foreclosure state, for if it were a civil complaint for the collection of an amount due, than would the debt instrument itself not be scrutinized as a first priority in the proceedings? Perhaps small unimportant questions like who actually owns the debt and is bringing the action would be relevant under such circumstances.

 The authority of loan contracts

In the end, the entire action by Fannie Mae and Green Tree, violates the very contract which is being disputed. Even if no other statues or laws had operated or ever existed, Eaton’s argument would survive on this one point alone – and Eaton is not unaccompanied – she stands with some 60 million other homeowners in the US with virtually identical contracts.

In the case of Eaton standard mortgage loan documents were used, and they essentially all look alike. The terms of Eaton’s mortgage contract, as with virtually all others, authorizes only the note holder to exercise the power of sale. The one concession Green Tree, LLC made was that they are not the note holder and have neither argued, nor provided evidentiary support for the claim, that a foreclosure by anyone other than the note holder was necessary (not that it would be possible).

 A bitter Fruit: Double Liability

It has been said, “By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?”. No, because “every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit” . Is Green Tree’s lawyer actually advocating that homeowners should just rely on the banks and servicers to be “nice guys” and not go after the debtors twice? It is already known that certain elements in the industry were willing to sell the same note multiple times into multiple pools which given Burnett v. Pratt, 39 Mass. 556 (1839), presents interesting problems for RMBS investors, who were essentially their business partners. If the architects of these systems can sell the same note twice, to their own business partners and customers, why would they not try to also collect twice from their debt-servants, who rank many orders below business partners and real customers?

If the severity of compound interest is not enough, the result may be plan “B” – “doubling up” where needed.

If the fact that being named on a valid mortgage is not sufficient to authorize a foreclosure, than automatically the question becomes who holds the note? The answer to the latter question is a bit more serious, for in the answer lies a good deal more than the banks would like to reveal.

Does greed have rational limits? It does not and it cannot because greed is not rational to begin with. Since nobody knows how the foreclosing mortgagee would actually go about paying the note holder, are homeowners to rely on a system of document management (which usually involves an Iron Mountain truck, and a whole lot of paper shredding) to ensure that debt-servants are set free if they ever pay off their “debts”?

Did barrowers really sign up for that when they signed their mortgage and note? If not, when and where are the limits?

 It’s only a matter of time

Homeowners must examine the assignments on their mortgages and notes. If a foreclosure is imminent, a preliminary injunction should be sought in order to have an opportunity to examine the documents thoroughly and also to give time to the SJC to issue its ruling – Jurisprudence matters. When the final Eaton ruling is taken together with Ibanez, there will be a sea change – it’s only a matter of time.

It seems reasonable that in a world where bandwidth intensive videos can be encoded and uploaded over a high speed 4G network from the New York Stock Exchange and on the Internet in 30 sec. using a smartphone with 64 gigs of memory (that can fit on a SanDisk card the size of your fingernail), and join billions of other files that have highly accurate GPS data embedded in their metadata, that finding a note for multiple six or seven figures debt and bringing it to court with you would really be no big deal – but apparently it is.

Foreclosures that took place before Ibanez, likely involve an assignment of the mortgage which is invalid because it would have been assigned post foreclosure (as was the common practice at the time), thus invalidating a huge number of existing foreclosures.

For foreclosures or those facing foreclosure in the post Ibanez era, than it is highly likely that the assignment of the mortgage is both invalid and fraudulent, as Mrs. McDonnell so accurately points out is endemic in most registry of deeds.  If it’s the note than that servicers intend to rely on, they may need to dream  up a new strategy, because those are all “missing” as we see in Eaton.  New strategies it seems are now in short supply.

A few more questions and thoughts

The “pump and dump” is as old as “market places” are. Whether it’s a street vendor in morocco extolling the virtues of his wares he wants to sell, or a the salesmen of shares in Netflix and Linkedin at impossiblele valuations – this “pump and dump” technique often is done with considerable misrepresentations, which result in artificially high prices for a time, and makes true price discovery impossible for buyers.

If you’re on the wrong side of the transfer, as a buyer of such stocks or bonds, you would have claims against the salesman – it’s called securities fraud. Now this ‘old time’ operation has been executed in the real estate market as well, and real estate, although most people don’t think of it this way, is also a security just like any other (it’s really not the American Dream, as has been sold – because as pointed out above, when something goes beyond the parameters of a mere security, to that of a “dream”, no price is too high). Just like stocks, these securities were pumped, and then dumped (but only after the related CDS’s were purchased by the architects).

What’s being described is an activity based on fraudulent misrepresentations, like most other such schemes. The “Pump” part involved a lot of paper shuffling, so that when the “dump” took place, the profiteers could not be easily identified. The same is true today. That is why debt-servants are not allowed to know their lender-masters – because it is the beginning of the paper trail, and as any certified fraud examiner will indicate, it all starts with the paper trail.

By focusing the attention of the court and the people on the intricacies of the letter of the law – even though they are wrong at that as well, the banks are taking attention away from the more obvious question, which is why? Why fight to interpret the law that way? That is the real question: Why. Why not produce the note. Why not reunite the note with the Mortgage?

Why would notes go missing? These are not credit card bills, they are documents outlining typically multi-six figure sums, or seven figure sums in some cases. Isn’t it logical that these documents would be kept in a safe place? And tracked? How could so many notes just disappear?

Why would the SJC and the American people at large not be alarmed by entities who foreclose on a property and yet have no idea who actually holds the debt?

The securitization process, in which so many notes were resold is subtle, but complex and riddled with a taxonomy that makes it as understandable as a foreign language to the casual observer. Yet, more careful scrutiny reveals that there is nothing even vaguely sophisticated about it’s operation.

The business of taking homes without any debt being owed is so obvious and simple so as to lend itself to denial. For example, one member of the SJC panel actually asked the attorney for Eaton why the barrower needed to know who owned the debt that they were paying? We thought maybe it was a joke – sadly it may not have been.

Yet, we know that notes have been sold multiple times into multiple pools and trusts, thus creating multiple creditors.

Any consumer should want to know if there debt is actually going to be discharged, and in order to know this, they would have to know who the actual debt holder is.

These debts are not secured. They are negotiable. This week alone, there was talk of bankruptcy proceedings for Eastman Kodak and American Airlines, Friendly’s, after more than 80 years in business, including operating during the last depression, actually did file. As commercial entities, they will be allowed before, during and after bankruptcy to work with their creditors in a completely transparent way.

Why is the average American expressly forbidden this simple aspect of business dealing? Though they entered into such obligations at far greater disadvantage than their corporate cousins?

It is clear that by introducing multiple parties that there are conflicting incentives and interests. It was surprising that the SJC brought up inadvertently during the oral arguments that the lender may have contractually sold their rights to have any say whatsoever in negotiations with the debt holder.

It is now well established that the servicers have the greatest financial incentives to foreclose, and apparently answer to no one, perhaps not even the lender, who nobody appears to be able to find.

The following question regarding Green Tree, MERS and the Eaton case are worth asking:

– Why would they go to such great lengths to keep the “lender” or holder of the debt in “secret”? What is there to gain? Would it not be much more expeditious to just reunite the note with the mortgage and then foreclose?

– Foreclosing with just a mortgage used to be an anomaly? But now it is the rule – what changed? Why would lenders take such an extraordinary risk with trillions of dollars?

– Does the claim that the notes are “lost”, or “missing” seem credible in light of the extraordinary technological world we live in?

– Is the imbalance in power between the home buyer (as signer) and the lawyer (as author) of the contract important? 99% of home buyers had no clue what they were signing – their attorney’s didn’t understand the assignee aspect of MERS or how it functioned either.

– Why would the servicer hide the debt holder? Why go through all of this trouble? Is it because it is really the US government by proxy of Fannie and Freddie?

– Were the notes used in a pyramid scheme? Were they sold multiple times intentionally in order to accommodate increasing degrees of leverage that the derivatives market required to sustain itself?

– What is the size of the global derivatives market which rest (at least in part) upon RMBS securities?

– Are RMBS pools really “Dark Liquidity” or simply “Dark Pools” and is that why MERS is necessary?

 A final note on reverse transfers

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts servicers in possession of mortgages only (which is basically all of those who represent securitized notes) are barred by common law rule, by statute, by the Uniform Commercial Code, and by the terms of the mortgages themselves from conducting foreclosures. If they have already done so, those foreclosures are void. We believe these principles do and will extend beyond the commonwealth eventually to all of the US.

The reason the banks are fighting this is because there exists a very real fear that homeowners stuck with inflated debts, which are the equivalent to indentured servents, might actually gain some negotiating power to settle these debts, at prices which not only reflect the prudent risk management which should have taken place in prior years, but also the related and more realistic asset prices which should have prevailed at the time of the original transactions.

From a purely business point of view, the asset prices were inflated, and the average home buyer with a home loan vintage 2002-2007 had little or no choice in the setting of those prices. However, there is another group who did, and they were writing “loans” and selling them as fast as the CPU and the RAMM on MERS’ servers would allow them (thankfully cloud computing, with its superior ability to process data, and elastic memory and bandwidth wasn’t yet widely used).

Yet the securitization industry and their very elite and very wealthy captains are not having any of that – because it is a reverse transfer. To be a debt-servant is to be the servant of another man by force. Humans are not designed or built for that – that is a construct of an unfortunate human condition, which we should want to change.

How a mortgage payment can be made with fidelity every month into a authentic black hole, and the attendant psychology which enables this behavior is beyond the scope of this article. The Common Law, the MGL and UCC and even the contracts themselves make it clear though, if a mortgagor expects a discharge of the debt, they need to know who exactly they are paying.

Taking a step forward requires some courage, but less than those who have taken to the streets in NY, Boston or other cities – they are doing really hard and courageous work. Not paying a mortgage in light of the a priori evidence cannot even qualify as an act of civil disobedience. The average homeowner and mortgagor is not called to such a high calling in this instance – they are merely called to follow the mundane laws of the land which have been set down for over 150 years. It is just simple prudence. It is the lack of denial, and a willingness to recognize the truth, no matter how unpleasant. Participation in the system as it is, while concurrently declining to examine the issues intelligently is not defensible.

Paradoxically the hand of the strong which moved to Divide (the notes) and Affirm (title interest) – when taken in God’s hands, has destroyed (the notes) and preserved (the legitimate ownership).

About Gregory M. Lemelson

Author – Amvona.com blog. Entrepreneur. Find joy in teaching and writing. Founded companies in retail, real estate and Internet technology.

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EATON v. FANNIE MAE – ORAL ARGUMENTS

EATON v. FANNIE MAE – ORAL ARGUMENTS


You may access all briefs and hear oral arguments by following the links below.

You will hear the cutting edge offense and defense regarding MERS authority (or lack thereof) to foreclose.

Please listen to Judge Gants hammer the Fannie Mae attorney about the Assignment!

 

.

Docket # SJC-11041
Date October 3, 2011
Video View oral argument with Windows Media Player
Summary
(prepared by Suffolk University Law School)
Mortgage Foreclosure– This case deals with the validity of a foreclosure sale conducted by a mortgagee who did not hold the underlying promissory note.
Appealed From Appeals Court, Single Justice, Justice Judd J. Carhart
Briefs See selection available in PDF format at Supreme Judicial Court website
Counsel for Appellant
(Appearing)
Federal National Mortgage Association:  Joseph P. Calandrelli, Richard E. Briansky
Counsel for Appellee
(Appearing)
Eaton:  David A. Grossman
Amici Curiae Adam J. Levitin

.

.

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AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF MARIE MCDONNELL, CFE FOR EATON v. FANNIE MAE

AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF MARIE MCDONNELL, CFE FOR EATON v. FANNIE MAE


Supreme Judicial Court
FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
NO. SJC-11041

HENRIETTA EATON,
PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,
v.
FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION & ANOTHER,
DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.

.

.

ON APPEAL FROM THE APPEALS COURT SINGLE JUSTICE

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE MARIE MCDONNELL, CFE

“It is incumbent upon consumers, their attorneys,
registry staff, clerks of court, and judges to learn
how to recognize these sham assignments because they
are corrupting the chain of title in our land records;
and because, once recorded, courts afford them
deference rather than seeing them for what they are:
counterfeits, forgeries and utterings.

The MERS System is no replacement for the timehonored
public land recording system that is the
foundation of our freedom, our prosperity, and our
American way of life. By privatizing property transfer
records MERS has been allowed to set up a “control
fraud” of epic proportions that has facilitated the
largest transfer of wealth in human history, and it
should be abolished.”

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AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF PROFESSOR ADAM J. LEVITIN FOR EATON v. FANNIE MAE

AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF PROFESSOR ADAM J. LEVITIN FOR EATON v. FANNIE MAE


COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT
S.J.C. NO. 11041

HENRIETTA EATON
Plaintiff-Appellee
V.
FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION & ANOTHER
Defendants-Appellees

ON APPEAL FROM MASSACHUSETTS
SUPERIOR COURT

CIVIL ACTION NO. 11-1382

AMICUS CURIAE BRIEF OF
PROFESSOR ADAM J. LEVITIN

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EATON v. FANNIE MAE, GREEN TREE SVCING | MASS SUPERIOR COURT “Mortgagee NOT in Possession of the Note, MERS, IBANEZ, Prelim. Injunction”

EATON v. FANNIE MAE, GREEN TREE SVCING | MASS SUPERIOR COURT “Mortgagee NOT in Possession of the Note, MERS, IBANEZ, Prelim. Injunction”


mortgagee without mortgage note holds “naked legal title” in trust


COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

SUPERIOR COURT
CIVIL ACTION
N0.-11 1381 E

HENRIETTA EATON

vs .

FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION & another1

Excerpts:

The Defendants have produced a photocopy of the Note. It is endorsed in blank and does not bear an allonge indicating when it was endorsed or who held it at the time of the foreclosure. For the purposes of this motion only, Defendants stipulate that Green Tree did not hold the Note when the foreclosure occurred.

[…]

There is no inconsistency between this analysis and the recent decision in U.S.Bank National Association v. Ibanez, 458 Mass. 637 (2011). Ibanez restated common law of the Commonwealth to the effect that the assignment of a mortgage must be effective before foreclosure in order to be valid. In Ibanez, it was undisputed that the foreclosing entities were the note holders. The plaintiffs argued that, as note holders, they had a sufficient financial interest to foreclose. Not so, said the Court; as note holders separated from the mortgage due to a lack of effective assignment, they had only a beneficial interest in the mortgage note. The Court held that the power of sale statute, by its terms, granted that authority to the mortgagee, not to the owner of the beneficial interest.2 The SJC did not address the authority of the assignee of the mortgage not in possession of the note to foreclose.

[…]

In finding that Eaton is likely to succeed on her claim, the court is cognizant of sound reason that would have historically supported the common law rule requiring the unification of the promissory note and the mortgage note in the foreclosing entity prior to foreclosure. Allowing foreclosure by a mortgagee not in possession of the mortgage note is potentially unfair to the mortgagor. A holder in due course of the promissory note could seek to recover against the mortgagor, thus exposing her to double liability. See 5- Star Mgmt., Inc. v. Rogers, 940 F. Supp. 512, 520 (D. E.D.N.Y. 1996); Cf. Cooperstein v. Bogas, 317 Mass. 341, 344 (1944) (noting that allowing a creditor ofthe mortgagee to reach and apply the interest of the debtor in the mortgage itself would “leav[ e] the note outstanding as a valid obligation of the mortgagor to the holder of the note who might possibly be a person other than the mortgagee.”).

CONCLUSION AND ORDER

For the reasons set forth above, Eaton’s motion for preliminary injunction is ALLOWED. Fannie Mae is hereby enjoined until further order of this court from proceeding with its previously commenced summary process action Housing Court Docket 2010-2010-SP-0379 with respect to Eaton’s residence at 141 Deforest Street, Roslindale, Massachusetts, or from interfering with the Eaton’s possession and enjoyment thereof. 9

[…]

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NOVASTAR v. SAFFRAN | MA Appeals Court Reverses APP. Division Decision and District Court Judgment “Present Holder, MERS, Ibanez Principles”

NOVASTAR v. SAFFRAN | MA Appeals Court Reverses APP. Division Decision and District Court Judgment “Present Holder, MERS, Ibanez Principles”


H/T ForeclosureHamlet

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS APPEALS COURT

NOVASTAR MORTGAGE, INC.

vs.

ELLIOT SAFFRAN

10-P-1107

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 1:28

After foreclosing on the mortgage of Elliot Saffran, and purchasing the Saffran property located at 26 Debbie Lane in Milford (property) at the foreclosure sale, the plaintiff, Novastar Mortgage, Inc. (Novastar) brought this summary process action for possession and monetary damages. [FN1] After a jury-waived trial in the District Court, judgment entered in favor of Novastar. Upon Saffran’s appeal to the Appellate Division, the judgment of summary process was affirmed. For the reasons discussed, we reverse the decision of the Appellate Division and order entry of a new decision reversing the judgment of the District Court and remanding the case to that court for further proceedings in light of U.S. Bank Natl. Assn. v. Ibanez, 458 Mass. 637 (2011), a case decided while Saffran’s appeal was pending in this court.

Saffran challenges Novastar’s title to the property, claiming that the foreclosure sale was invalid because, as alleged by Saffran, Novastar was not the holder of the mortgage at the critical stages of the foreclosure process. [FN2] The original mortgage identified Novastar as the ‘Lender’ but a separate corporation, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS), as mortgagee ‘solely as a nominee for Lender and Lender’s successors and assigns.’ Saffran claims that by failing to produce a valid assignment of the mortgage from MERS to Novastar at the summary process trial, Novastar failed to establish, as required by statute, that it was the ‘present holder’ of the mortgage at the time of the notice of sale and the subsequent foreclosure sale. See id. at 648, citing G. L. c. 183, § 21, and G. L. c. 244, § 14 (‘[O]nly a present holder of the mortgage is authorized to foreclose on the mortgaged property’).

The trial judge did not address this issue directly. As the Appellate Division observed, the judge implicity rejected the argument because he awarded Novastar possession. Apparently, the trial judge took the position that because Novastar produced a foreclosure deed which stated that Novastar was the present holder of the mortgage from Saffran to MERS by virtue of a conveyance, the burden was on Saffran to show that Novastar was not the mortgage holder at the time of the notice of sale and the foreclosure sale of the property. [FN3]

In summary process proceedings, it is a foreclosing entity’s burden to establish that ‘title was acquired strictly according to the power of sale provided in the mortgage . . . .’ Wayne Inv. Corp. v. Abbott, 350 Mass. 775, 775 (1966). In Ibanez, 458 Mass. at 647, the Supreme Judicial Court stated that ‘[o]ne of the terms of the power of sale that must be strictly adhered to is the restriction on who is entitled to foreclose.’ Thus, as the court explained, a plaintiff that is ‘not the original mortgagee[] to whom the power of sale was granted [but] rather, claim[s] the authority to foreclose as [an] assignee’ must demonstrate that it was the assignee of the mortgage both ‘at the time of the notice of sale and the subsequent foreclosure sale.’ Id. at 648. ‘A plaintiff that cannot make this modest showing cannot justly proclaim that it was unfairly denied [relief].’ Id. at 651.

We interpret the holding in Ibanez as placing the burden to present proof of an actual assignment on the entity, here Novastar, which is claiming the right to foreclose as an assignee. Therefore, the trial judge erred by requiring Saffran to demonstrate that Novastar was not the mortgage holder at the critical stages of the foreclosure process. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the Appellate Division and a new decision is to enter reversing the judgment of the District Court and remanding the case to that court for a new determination in light of the principles discussed in Ibanez.

So ordered.

By the Court (Kantrowitz, Mills & Vuono, JJ.),

Entered: June 10, 2011.

FN1. In June, 2006, Saffran borrowed $420,000 from Novastar and secured the loan with a mortgage on the property.
FN2. Saffran also claims that the foreclosure deed is fraudulent. However, when pressed by the trial judge, Saffran acknowledged that he had no evidence to support his claim. Accordingly, we agree with the judge’s conclusion that Saffran failed to meet his burden of demonstrating fraud on the court by clear and convincing evidence. See Rockdale Mgmt. Co. v. Shawmut Bank, N.A., 418 Mass. 596, 598-600 (1994).
FN3. The foreclosure deed had been recorded at the Worcester County registry of deeds twenty-two days after the foreclosure sale. Novastar also produced (1) the statutory foreclosure affidavit pursuant to G. L. c. 244, § 14, in which Novastar’s attorney averred that the power of sale was duly executed, see G. L. c. 244, § 15, and (2) a copy of the notice of sale, which stated that Novastar was the present holder of the subject mortgage ‘by assignment’ from MERS. Novastar did not, however, produce a copy of an assignment of the mortgage from MERS. Interestingly, Saffran has included what purports to be such an assignment in his appendix. However, because the document was not presented to the trial judge, we do not consider it.
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Adam Levitin’s Amicus Brief in CMBS Deal | La VILLITA MOTOR INNS v. ORIX CAPITAL MARKETS

Adam Levitin’s Amicus Brief in CMBS Deal | La VILLITA MOTOR INNS v. ORIX CAPITAL MARKETS


Could this be the Ibanez of CMBS?

AMICUS BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR REVIEW

La Villita Motor Inns, J.V., Executive Motels of San Antonio, Inc., and S.A. Sunvest
Hotels, Inc
.

Appellant,

v.

Orix Capital Markets, LLC, Bank of America, N.A. LNR Partners, Inc., Capmark
Finance, Inc., Nicholas M. Pyka as Trustee, Michael N. Blue as Trustee, and Greta E.
Goldsby as Trustee
,

Appellees.

Excerpt:

INTRODUCTION

This case involves a controversy about mortgage servicing. Mortgage servicing is the administration of mortgage loans—the collection of payments and management of defaults—on behalf of third parties. Mortgage servicing is an essential component of mortgage securitization, which is the predominant method for financing commercial mortgages in major metropolitan markets and for financing residential mortgages nationwide.

Continue reading below…

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THE CASE AGAINST ALLOWING MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC. (MERS) TO INITIATE FORECLOSURE PROCEEDINGS

THE CASE AGAINST ALLOWING MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC. (MERS) TO INITIATE FORECLOSURE PROCEEDINGS


The Case Against Allowing Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) to Initiate Foreclosure Proceedings

~

Nolan Robinson
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

March 21, 2011

Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, p. 101, 2011

Abstract:
Few American homeowners know much about the small, Virginia-based company that has revolutionized the mortgage industry over the past fifteen years. Yet, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) is the named mortgagee on nearly two-thirds of all newly originated residential mortgages in the United States. Industry leaders – including Freddy Mac, Ginnie Mae, and a host of private lenders – created MERS in the mid-1990s to help facilitate a burgeoning market in mortgage-backed securities.

At the time MERS was created, a robust and lightly regulated secondary market for mortgage-backed securities seemed like a good idea. The recent subprime mortgage crisis, which has impacted millions of American homeowners and played a key role in a global recession, has done much to challenge that presumption. One unfortunate byproduct of the subprime mortgage crisis has been a dramatic increase in the number of American homeowners facing foreclosure. For many of these homeowners, the MERS system may compound their hardships by effectively masking the identity of the owner of their loans. One of the benefits of MERS membership, according to MERS, is the legal right to foreclose on a defaulting homeowner in MERS’s name rather than in the name of the entity who actually owns the mortgage. This can mean that homeowners have no way of ascertaining the identity of the party with whom they can negotiate their loans.

Several state courts have considered challenges to MERS’s right to initiate foreclosure actions in its own name. MERS claims to have the legal authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings throughout the United States, but not every court has agreed. Some jurisdictions have expressly upheld MERS’s right to foreclose, while some have questioned or limited MERS’s foreclosure rights. Still other courts have reserved judgment, expressing frustration and confusion regarding MERS’s role in an increasing number of foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings, and the ostensible connection between MERS and the subprime mortgage crisis.

MERS is currently a plaintiff in as many as forty percent of pending foreclosure actions in some locales. This Note argues that foreclosure actions brought in MERS’s name, without joining the real party in interest, are unlawful. Furthermore, this Note reveals how granting standing to MERS in foreclosure actions threatens to undermine the protections for homeowners that foreclosure law has traditionally provided, and violates important property law doctrines that ensure the proper functioning of the recording system and minimize clouds on title.

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MA BK Judge Vacates Own Ruling “MERS Assignment Fail, Securitization Fail, Deutsche Was NOT Owner of Mortgage” IN RE: SCHWARTZ

MA BK Judge Vacates Own Ruling “MERS Assignment Fail, Securitization Fail, Deutsche Was NOT Owner of Mortgage” IN RE: SCHWARTZ


Ibanez, 458 Mass. at 651 (emphasis added). None of the evidence thus far presented at trial indicated that the plaintiff’s mortgage was part of the Trust Fund, or how the Depositor acquired the Trust Fund.

In re: SIMA SCHWARTZ, Debtor.

SIMA SCHWARTZ, Plaintiff,

v.

HOMEQ SERVICING, AGENT FOR DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY, AS TRUSTEE and DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL COMPANY, AS TRUSTEE, Defendants.

Case No. 06-42476-MSH, Adv. Pro. No. 07-04098.

United States Bankruptcy Court, D. Massachusetts, Central Division.

April 7, 2011.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFF?S MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL

Excerpt:

A central question at trial was whether defendant Deutsche was the owner of the mortgage on the plaintiff’s home during the foreclosure process which resulted in the foreclosure sale of the home on May 24, 2006.2 The plaintiff introduced into evidence a document entitled “Assignment of Mortgage” dated May 23, 2006, which reflected the assignment of the plaintiff’s mortgage from the original mortgagee, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as nominee for First NCL Financial Services, LLC, to defendant Deutsche. During the plaintiff’s case, all parties agreed that this assignment was dated prior to the date of the foreclosure sale. No party disputed its authenticity or validity. Because the assignment was executed prior to the foreclosure sale and its validity was not questioned, I ruled at trial that the plaintiff had failed to carry her burden of proving that Deutsche was not the owner of the mortgage when it foreclosed.

In her motion for a new trial, the plaintiff argues that I misconstrued Massachusetts law, pointing out that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in U.S. Bank. Nat’l Ass’n v. Ibanez, 458 Mass. 673, 941 N.E.2d 40 (2011) recently held that in order for a foreclosure sale to be valid the mortgage must have been assigned to the foreclosing entity not merely before the sale, but prior to the first publication of notice of that sale required by Mass. Gen. Laws. ch. 244, § 14. Ibanez, 458 Mass. at 647-48. I agree with the plaintiff’s interpretation of Ibanez and since the May 23, 2006 assignment was executed after the foreclosure notices had been published, I could not rely on the assignment exclusively in granting the defendants judgment on partial findings. In light of the foregoing I must determine whether and to what extent to open the March 6, 2011 judgment for the defendants.

In Count I of the complaint, the plaintiff seeks a ruling that the foreclosure sale was invalid. Not only does the March 23, 2006 assignment fail to establish the validity of the foreclosure sale, it constitutes the only evidence presented that at the time Deutsche began publishing notice of the sale, Deutsche was not the holder of the mortgage. The defendants argue that the pooling and servicing agreement dated November 1, 2005 which is listed in the joint pretrial  memorandum as a trial exhibit provides evidence that the mortgage on the plaintiff’s property was assigned to Deutsche well before the foreclosure process had begun. The excerpt of the pooling and servicing agreement that was admitted during the plaintiff’s case in chief, however, provides no such evidence. The excerpt indicates that an entity defined as the “Depositor” assigned the “Trust Fund”, which I presume included mortgages listed on a mortgage loan schedule not provided, to Deutsche, as Trustee for the benefit of the certificateholders of the Morgan Stanley Home Equity Loan Trust 2005-4. In Ibanez, the Supreme Judicial Court held that where, as here, a recordable assignment was not executed prior to the first publication of a notice of a foreclosure sale, the foreclosing entity may nevertheless prove that it was the mortgagee at the relevant time. The Court observed:

[w]here a pool of mortgages is assigned to a securitized trust, the executed agreement that assigns the pool of mortgages, with a schedule of the pooled mortgage loans that clearly and specifically identifies the mortgage at issue as among those assigned, may suffice to establish the trustee as the mortgage holder. However, there must be proof that the assignment was made by a party that itself held the mortgage.

Ibanez, 458 Mass. at 651 (emphasis added). None of the evidence thus far presented at trial indicated that the plaintiff’s mortgage was part of the Trust Fund, or how the Depositor acquired the Trust Fund.

I find that the plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence of the chain of title of the mortgage on her property to carry her burden of persuasion that the mortgage was not owned by Deutsche before the first publication of the notice of foreclosure sale. I must, therefore, vacate and open the judgment for the defendants on Count I of the complaint.

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CLOUDED TITLES | You Can’t Sell Real Estate When You Can’t Establish You Own It!

CLOUDED TITLES | You Can’t Sell Real Estate When You Can’t Establish You Own It!


Abigail Field raises an excellent point in her latest article titled Why the Foreclosure Mess Settlement Proposal Can’t Fix the Damage. She states

You can’t sell real estate when you can’t establish that you own it — banks won’t loan money for purchasers to buy the property. That’s because the bank wants to be sure that if it forecloses, it will get good title to the property. (Yes, this issue practically oozes irony.) That’s why banks won’t approve a mortgage for a property if a title insurance company won’t insure its title. And title insurance companies won’t do that if they know the title is clouded.

A few months ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued its Ibanez decision, which made it clear that the banks’ foreclosure practices — and indeed, the standard securitization deal — violated longstanding basic Massachusetts real estate law, and thus, many completed Massachusetts foreclosures were invalid. The foreclosing banks, which had either since sold the properties or still “owned” them, had no right to foreclose, and therefore had never owned those properties. So who owns them now? Well, the fact that it’s a question is the very definition of “clouded title.”

Naked Capitalism’s Eve directs the attention to the following

One thing that it is important to stress: that the abuses to established real estate transfer and recording processes were not inherent to the securitization model. I’m not a fan of securitization but the sad reality is that no one is prepared to go back to the more costly in terms of equity required, model of on-balance sheet banking (it would result in a shrinkage of credit that every respectable economist would recommend against and hence will never happen). But no one (except the FDIC, which keeps being ignored) is thinking seriously enough about what it would take to make securitization safer.

Everyone, from the bank originators to the investment bank packagers, got hooked on the easy profits, and kept pushing for ways to streamline the process, to both increase their profits and increase the size of the potential market. The biggest problems result from cutting corners, including the failure of the deal sponsors to adhere to their own agreements with investors, that led to this mess. Securitization had existed since the 1970s; MERS, one of the biggest culprits in the uncertainties over title, did not become a serious player until 1999. The widespread failure to convey notes (the borrower IOU) to securitization trusts appears not to have started until sometime between 2002 and 2004.

It’s not rocket science that the problems are clearly visible and this is not going to be easily thrown under the rug as they have done so well thus far.

You can’t sell real estate that doesn’t have a clean bill of health especially with fraudulent documentation.

An important question that should be considered is why hasn’t the National Association of Realtors not issued ANY warnings to their agents about the defects and consequences of selling properties that have been foreclosed and or in short sale? I know for a fact, the NAR’s former president Vickie Cox Golder was made well aware of this in 2010.


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ADAM LEVITIN | Clash of the Titans: RMBS Edition

ADAM LEVITIN | Clash of the Titans: RMBS Edition


posted by Adam Levitin
.

And so it begins. We’re about to witness the main event in financial institution internecine warefare: investment funds (MBS buyers) vs. banks (MBS sellers).

There have already been some opening skirmishes. The monoline bond insurers (MBIA, Syncora, FGIC, Ambac (and here), CIFG (and here), and–I haven’t found any litigation with them on this, but there’s gotta be some–ACA) have been litigating against some of the banks whose securitizations they insured for various fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and breach of warranty claims. Many of the Federal Home Loan Banks (Chicago, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, maybe others that I don’t recall of the top of my head), which slurped up RMBS during the bubble, only to find them toxic, have brought (separate) suits mainly on securities fraud charges, but also on common law fraud and negligent misrepresentation claims. (See here for a totally dated, August 2010 estimation of the liabilities in these suits.)

Then last fall the financial world was shaken by the New York Fed, BlackRock, and PIMCO’s demand letter to Bank of New York Mellon and Countrywide. That showed that A-list financial institutions were taking the range of problems with RMBS, from representation and warranty breaches to servicer malfeasance, seriously. (You can see the NY Fed, acting for the Maiden Lane LLCs, as really another representing AIG, essentially the mother of all monolines for these purposes.) But that wasn’t litigation proper, just an angry growl, with a threat of litigation if things weren’t resolved. (When you see the letterhead for the response, you’ll see that BoA/CW is taking this mighty seriously. Despite the typo in that snippy letter, it didn’t come cheap. These guys are lawyering up.)

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NY Judge Markey Uses Recent MA SJC “U.S. Bank v. Ibanez” in DEUTSCHE BANK v. RAMOTAR

NY Judge Markey Uses Recent MA SJC “U.S. Bank v. Ibanez” in DEUTSCHE BANK v. RAMOTAR


Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, Plaintiff,

against

Auditya S. Ramotar, et al., Defendants.

1730/2009

For the Plaintiff: Frenkel, Lambert, Weiss, Weisman & Gordon, LLP, by Kevin M. Butler, Esq., 20 West Main St., Bay Shore, New York 11706

For the Defendant: Bachu & Associates, by Darmin T. Bachu, Esq., 127-21 Liberty Ave., Richmond Hill, New York 11419

Charles J. Markey, J.

Excerpt:

Just recently, Massachusetts’s highest court, its Supreme Judicial Court, in U.S. Bank National Association v Ibanez, ___ NE2d ____, 2011 WL 2011 WL 38071 (Jan. 7, 2011) [6-0 decision, with majority and concurring opinions] unanimously held that two banks, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, failed to prove that they owned the mortgages when they foreclosed on the homes. See, id. The fact that the homeowners owed a lot of money on the mortgages was conceded in the Court’s ruling that the banks did not properly prove ownership.

[…]

Chief Judge Lippman has stated that the New York court system should not stand by idly, during a tough economic crisis, where the integrity of the determination of home ownership is at stake. See discussion in Washington Mutual Bank v Phillip, 20 Misc 3d [*3] 127[A], 2010 WL 4813782, 2010 NY Slip Op 52034[U] [Sup Ct Kings County 2010] [Schack, J.].

The practices of the plaintiff in this case, in not carefully evaluating the merits of each mortgage foreclosure case individually, has been criticized by the courts in: Deutsche Bank Nat. Trust Co. v Harris, 2008 WL 620756, 2008 NY Slip Op 30308[U] [Sup Ct Kings County 2008]; Deutsche Bank v Maraj, 18 Misc 3d 1123(A), 2008 WL 253926, 2008 NY Slip Op 50176 [Sup Ct Kings County 2008]; Deutsche Bank Nat. Trust Co. v Lewis, 14 Misc 3d 1201(A), 2006 WL 3593431, 2006 NY Slip Op 52368[U] [Sup Ct Suffolk County 2006], all of those decisions denying the plaintiff’s motion for relief without prejudice upon the submission of proper papers. See also discussion in Onewest Bank, F.S.B. v Drayton, 29 Misc 3d 1021 [Sup Ct Kings County 2010].

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BOSTON GLOBE: A New Act In Foreclosure Circus

BOSTON GLOBE: A New Act In Foreclosure Circus


By Paul McMorrow
January 14, 2011

LAST WEEK’S Supreme Judicial Court decision, in which the court upended a pair of Springfield foreclosures and upbraided Wells Fargo and US Bank for maintaining sloppy records is great news for homeowners facing foreclosure. Mortgage-servicing banks, which were in the habit of trading mortgages around like cheap baseball cards, will be forced to slow the pace of foreclosures even more, and carefully verify that they actually own the mortgages on the properties they want to foreclose on. But the decision brings uncertainty to buyers of foreclosed properties — buyers who might not have clear title to their homes anymore.

The SJC decision in Ibanez vs. US Bancorp justifiably beat up on a pair of banks that couldn’t prove they owned mortgages they foreclosed on. The reverberations should be especially strong for mortgage investors and big banks.

Investors who bought up bonds backed by huge pools of mortgages have already been pressuring banks to buy back pools of bad mortgages that they sold before the housing bubble collapsed. These cases only cover a relatively small universe of poorly underwritten loans, but billions of dollars are at stake. Investors burned by mortgage bets have been trying to line up a much more expansive set of lawsuits challenging not the mortgages themselves, but the way big banks handled them after they were sold. The Ibanez decision gives serious weight to those investors, who are eying massive potential payouts.

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ADAM LEVITIN| Ibanez and Securitization Fail

ADAM LEVITIN| Ibanez and Securitization Fail


posted by Adam Levitin
.

The Ibanez foreclosure decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has gotten a lot of attention since it came down on Friday. The case is, not surprisingly being taken to heart by both bulls and bears. While I don’t think Ibanez is a death blow to the securitization industry, at the very least it should make investors question the party line that’s been coming out of the American Securitization Forum. At the very least it shows that the ASF’s claims in its White Paper and Congressional testimony are wrong on some points, as I’ve argued elsewhere, including on this blog. I would argue that at the very least, Ibanez shows that there is previously undisclosed material risk in all private-label MBS.

The Ibanez case itself is actually very simple. The issue before the court was whether the two securitization trusts could prove a chain of title for the mortgages they were attempting to foreclose on.  

There’s broad agreement that absent such a chain of title, they don’t have the right to foreclose–they’d have as much standing as I do relative to the homeowners. The trusts claimed three alternative bases for chain of title:

(1) that the mortgages were transferred via the pooling and servicing agreement (PSA)–basically a contract of sale of the mortgages

(2) that the mortgages were transferred via assignments in blank.

(3) that the mortgages follow the note and transferred via the transfers of the notes.

The Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) held that arguments #2 and #3 simply don’t work in Massachusetts. The reasoning here was heavily derived from Massachusetts being a title theory state, but I think a court in a lien theory state could easily reach the same result. It’s hard to predict if other states will adopt the SJC’s reasoning, but it is a unanimous verdict (with an even sharper concurrence) by one of the most highly regarded state courts in the country.  The opinion is quite lucid and persuasive, particularly the point that if the wrong plaintiff is named is the foreclosure notice, the homeowner hasn’t received proper notice of the foreclosure.

Regarding #1, the SJC held that a PSA might suffice as a valid assignment of the mortgages, if the PSA is executed and contains a schedule that sufficiently identifies the mortgage in question, and  if there is proof that the assignor in the PSA itself held the mortgage. (This last point is nothing more than the old rule of nemo dat–you can’t give what you don’t have. It shows that there has to be a complete chain of title going back to origination.)  

On the facts, both mortgages in Ibanez failed these requirements. In one case, the PSA couldn’t even be located(!) and in the other, there was a non-executed copy and the purported loan schedule (not the actual schedule–see Marie McDonnell’s amicus brief to the SJC) didn’t sufficiently identify the loan. Moreover, there was no proof that the mortgage chain of title even got to the depositor (the assignor), without which the PSA is meaningless: 

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BREAKING NEWS: AFFIRMED MASSIVE VICTORY RULING FOR HOMEOWNERS “IBANEZ, LaRACE”

BREAKING NEWS: AFFIRMED MASSIVE VICTORY RULING FOR HOMEOWNERS “IBANEZ, LaRACE”


Via Marie McDonnell


read the decision below...

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NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030       (617) 557-1030

SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us

SJC-10694

U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, trustee1 vs. ANTONIO IBANEZ (and a consolidated case2,3).

Suffolk. October 7, 2010. – January 7, 2011.

Present: Marshall, C.J., Ireland, Spina, Cordy, Botsford, & Gants, JJ.4

Real Property, Mortgage, Ownership, Record title. Mortgage, Real estate, Foreclosure, Assignment. Notice, Foreclosure of mortgage.

Civil actions commenced in the Land Court Department on September 16 and October 30, 2008.

Motions for entry of default judgment and to vacate judgment were heard by Keith C. Long, J.

The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for direct appellate review.

R. Bruce Allensworth (Phoebe S. Winder & Robert W. Sparkes, III, with him) for U.S. Bank National Association & another.

Paul R. Collier, III (Max W. Weinstein with him) for Antonio Ibanez.

Glenn F. Russell, Jr., for Mark A. LaRace & another.

The following submitted briefs for amici curiae:

Martha Coakley, Attorney General, & John M. Stephan, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.

Kevin Costello, Gary Klein, Shennan Kavanagh & Stuart Rossman for National Consumer Law Center & others.

Ward P. Graham & Robert J. Moriarty, Jr., for Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts, Inc.

Marie McDonnell, pro se.

GANTS, J. After foreclosing on two properties and purchasing the properties back at the foreclosure sales, U.S. Bank National Association (U.S. Bank), as trustee for the Structured Asset Securities Corporation Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2006-Z; and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (Wells Fargo), as trustee for ABFC 2005-OPT 1 Trust, ABFC Asset Backed Certificates, Series 2005-OPT 1 (plaintiffs) filed separate complaints in the Land Court asking a judge to declare that they held clear title to the properties in fee simple. We agree with the judge that the plaintiffs, who were not the original mortgagees, failed to make the required showing that they were the holders of the mortgages at the time of foreclosure. As a result, they did not demonstrate that the foreclosure sales were valid to convey title to the subject properties, and their requests for a declaration of clear title were properly denied.5

Procedural history. On July 5, 2007, U.S. Bank, as trustee, foreclosed on the mortgage of Antonio Ibanez, and purchased the Ibanez property at the foreclosure sale. On the same day, Wells Fargo, as trustee, foreclosed on the mortgage of Mark and Tammy LaRace, and purchased the LaRace property at that foreclosure sale.

In September and October of 2008, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo brought separate actions in the Land Court under G. L. c. 240, § 6, which authorizes actions “to quiet or establish the title to land situated in the commonwealth or to remove a cloud from the title thereto.” The two complaints sought identical relief: (1) a judgment that the right, title, and interest of the mortgagor (Ibanez or the LaRaces) in the property was extinguished by the foreclosure; (2) a declaration that there was no cloud on title arising from publication of the notice of sale in the Boston Globe; and (3) a declaration that title was vested in the plaintiff trustee in fee simple. U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo each asserted in its complaint that it had become the holder of the respective mortgage through an assignment made after the foreclosure sale.

In both cases, the mortgagors — Ibanez and the LaRaces — did not initially answer the complaints, and the plaintiffs moved for entry of default judgment. In their motions for entry of default judgment, the plaintiffs addressed two issues: (1) whether the Boston Globe, in which the required notices of the foreclosure sales were published, is a newspaper of “general circulation” in Springfield, the town where the foreclosed properties lay. See G. L. c. 244, § 14 (requiring publication every week for three weeks in newspaper published in town where foreclosed property lies, or of general circulation in that town); and (2) whether the plaintiffs were legally entitled to foreclose on the properties where the assignments of the mortgages to the plaintiffs were neither executed nor recorded in the registry of deeds until after the foreclosure sales.6 The two cases were heard together by the Land Court, along with a third case that raised the same issues.

On March 26, 2009, judgment was entered against the plaintiffs. The judge ruled that the foreclosure sales were invalid because, in violation of G. L. c. 244, § 14, the notices of the foreclosure sales named U.S. Bank (in the Ibanez foreclosure) and Wells Fargo (in the LaRace foreclosure) as the mortgage holders where they had not yet been assigned the mortgages.7 The judge found, based on each plaintiff’s assertions in its complaint, that the plaintiffs acquired the mortgages by assignment only after the foreclosure sales and thus had no interest in the mortgages being foreclosed at the time of the publication of the notices of sale or at the time of the foreclosure sales.8

The plaintiffs then moved to vacate the judgments. At a hearing on the motions on April 17, 2009, the plaintiffs conceded that each complaint alleged a postnotice, postforeclosure sale assignment of the mortgage at issue, but they now represented to the judge that documents might exist that could show a prenotice, preforeclosure sale assignment of the mortgages. The judge granted the plaintiffs leave to produce such documents, provided they were produced in the form they existed in at the time the foreclosure sale was noticed and conducted. In response, the plaintiffs submitted hundreds of pages of documents to the judge, which they claimed established that the mortgages had been assigned to them before the foreclosures. Many of these documents related to the creation of the securitized mortgage pools in which the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages were purportedly included.9

The judge denied the plaintiffs’ motions to vacate judgment on October 14, 2009, concluding that the newly submitted documents did not alter the conclusion that the plaintiffs were not the holders of the respective mortgages at the time of foreclosure. We granted the parties’ applications for direct appellate review.

Factual background. We discuss each mortgage separately, describing when appropriate what the plaintiffs allege to have happened and what the documents in the record demonstrate.10

The Ibanez mortgage. On December 1, 2005, Antonio Ibanez took out a $103,500 loan for the purchase of property at 20 Crosby Street in Springfield, secured by a mortgage to the lender, Rose Mortgage, Inc. (Rose Mortgage). The mortgage was recorded the following day. Several days later, Rose Mortgage executed an assignment of this mortgage in blank, that is, an assignment that did not specify the name of the assignee.11 The blank space in the assignment was at some point stamped with the name of Option One Mortgage Corporation (Option One) as the assignee, and that assignment was recorded on June 7, 2006. Before the recording, on January 23, 2006, Option One executed an assignment of the Ibanez mortgage in blank.

According to U.S. Bank, Option One assigned the Ibanez mortgage to Lehman Brothers Bank, FSB, which assigned it to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which then assigned it to the Structured Asset Securities Corporation,12 which then assigned the mortgage, pooled with approximately 1,220 other mortgage loans, to U.S. Bank, as trustee for the Structured Asset Securities Corporation Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2006-Z. With this last assignment, the Ibanez and other loans were pooled into a trust and converted into mortgage-backed securities that can be bought and sold by investors — a process known as securitization.

For ease of reference, the chain of entities through which the Ibanez mortgage allegedly passed before the foreclosure sale is:

Rose Mortgage, Inc. (originator)

Option One Mortgage Corporation (record holder)

Lehman Brothers Bank, FSB

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (seller)

Structured Asset Securities Corporation (depositor)

U.S. Bank National Association, as trustee for the Structured Asset Securities Corporation Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2006-Z

According to U.S. Bank, the assignment of the Ibanez mortgage to U.S. Bank occurred pursuant to a December 1, 2006, trust agreement, which is not in the record. What is in the record is the private placement memorandum (PPM), dated December 26, 2006, a 273-page, unsigned offer of mortgage-backed securities to potential investors. The PPM describes the mortgage pools and the entities involved, and summarizes the provisions of the trust agreement, including the representation that mortgages “will be” assigned into the trust. According to the PPM, “[e]ach transfer of a Mortgage Loan from the Seller [Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.] to the Depositor [Structured Asset Securities Corporation] and from the Depositor to the Trustee [U.S. Bank] will be intended to be a sale of that Mortgage Loan and will be reflected as such in the Sale and Assignment Agreement and the Trust Agreement, respectively.” The PPM also specifies that “[e]ach Mortgage Loan will be identified in a schedule appearing as an exhibit to the Trust Agreement.” However, U.S. Bank did not provide the judge with any mortgage schedule identifying the Ibanez loan as among the mortgages that were assigned in the trust agreement.

On April 17, 2007, U.S. Bank filed a complaint to foreclose on the Ibanez mortgage in the Land Court under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (Servicemembers Act), which restricts foreclosures against active duty members of the uniformed services. See 50 U.S.C. Appendix §§ 501, 511, 533 (2006 & Supp. II 2008).13 In the complaint, U.S. Bank represented that it was the “owner (or assignee) and holder” of the mortgage given by Ibanez for the property. A judgment issued on behalf of U.S. Bank on June 26, 2007, declaring that the mortgagor was not entitled to protection from foreclosure under the Servicemembers Act. In June, 2007, U.S. Bank also caused to be published in the Boston Globe the notice of the foreclosure sale required by G. L. c. 244, § 14. The notice identified U.S. Bank as the “present holder” of the mortgage.

At the foreclosure sale on July 5, 2007, the Ibanez property was purchased by U.S. Bank, as trustee for the securitization trust, for $94,350, a value significantly less than the outstanding debt and the estimated market value of the property. The foreclosure deed (from U.S. Bank, trustee, as the purported holder of the mortgage, to U.S. Bank, trustee, as the purchaser) and the statutory foreclosure affidavit were recorded on May 23, 2008. On September 2, 2008, more than one year after the sale, and more than five months after recording of the sale, American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., “as successor-in-interest” to Option One, which was until then the record holder of the Ibanez mortgage, executed a written assignment of that mortgage to U.S. Bank, as trustee for the securitization trust.14 This assignment was recorded on September 11, 2008.

The LaRace mortgage. On May 19, 2005, Mark and Tammy LaRace gave a mortgage for the property at 6 Brookburn Street in Springfield to Option One as security for a $103,200 loan; the mortgage was recorded that same day. On May 26, 2005, Option One executed an assignment of this mortgage in blank.

According to Wells Fargo, Option One later assigned the LaRace mortgage to Bank of America in a July 28, 2005, flow sale and servicing agreement. Bank of America then assigned it to Asset Backed Funding Corporation (ABFC) in an October 1, 2005, mortgage loan purchase agreement. Finally, ABFC pooled the mortgage with others and assigned it to Wells Fargo, as trustee for the ABFC 2005-OPT 1 Trust, ABFC Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2005-OPT 1, pursuant to a pooling and servicing agreement (PSA).

For ease of reference, the chain of entities through which the LaRace mortgage allegedly passed before the foreclosure sale is:

Option One Mortgage Corporation (originator and record holder)

Bank of America

Asset Backed Funding Corporation (depositor)

Wells Fargo, as trustee for the ABFC 2005-OPT 1, ABFC Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2005-OPT 1

Wells Fargo did not provide the judge with a copy of the flow sale and servicing agreement, so there is no document in the record reflecting an assignment of the LaRace mortgage by Option One to Bank of America. The plaintiff did produce an unexecuted copy of the mortgage loan purchase agreement, which was an exhibit to the PSA. The mortgage loan purchase agreement provides that Bank of America, as seller, “does hereby agree to and does hereby sell, assign, set over, and otherwise convey to the Purchaser [ABFC], without recourse, on the Closing Date . . . all of its right, title and interest in and to each Mortgage Loan.” The agreement makes reference to a schedule listing the assigned mortgage loans, but this schedule is not in the record, so there was no document before the judge showing that the LaRace mortgage was among the mortgage loans assigned to the ABFC.

Wells Fargo did provide the judge with a copy of the PSA, which is an agreement between the ABFC (as depositor), Option One (as servicer), and Wells Fargo (as trustee), but this copy was downloaded from the Securities and Exchange Commission website and was not signed. The PSA provides that the depositor “does hereby transfer, assign, set over and otherwise convey to the Trustee, on behalf of the Trust . . . all the right, title and interest of the Depositor . . . in and to . . . each Mortgage Loan identified on the Mortgage Loan Schedules,” and “does hereby deliver” to the trustee the original mortgage note, an original mortgage assignment “in form and substance acceptable for recording,” and other documents pertaining to each mortgage.

The copy of the PSA provided to the judge did not contain the loan schedules referenced in the agreement. Instead, Wells Fargo submitted a schedule that it represented identified the loans assigned in the PSA, which did not include property addresses, names of mortgagors, or any number that corresponds to the loan number or servicing number on the LaRace mortgage. Wells Fargo contends that a loan with the LaRace property’s zip code and city is the LaRace mortgage loan because the payment history and loan amount matches the LaRace loan.

On April 27, 2007, Wells Fargo filed a complaint under the Servicemembers Act in the Land Court to foreclose on the LaRace mortgage. The complaint represented Wells Fargo as the “owner (or assignee) and holder” of the mortgage given by the LaRaces for the property. A judgment issued on behalf of Wells Fargo on July 3, 2007, indicating that the LaRaces were not beneficiaries of the Servicemembers Act and that foreclosure could proceed in accordance with the terms of the power of sale. In June, 2007, Wells Fargo caused to be published in the Boston Globe the statutory notice of sale, identifying itself as the “present holder” of the mortgage.

At the foreclosure sale on July 5, 2007, Wells Fargo, as trustee, purchased the LaRace property for $120,397.03, a value significantly below its estimated market value. Wells Fargo did not execute a statutory foreclosure affidavit or foreclosure deed until May 7, 2008. That same day, Option One, which was still the record holder of the LaRace mortgage, executed an assignment of the mortgage to Wells Fargo as trustee; the assignment was recorded on May 12, 2008. Although executed ten months after the foreclosure sale, the assignment declared an effective date of April 18, 2007, a date that preceded the publication of the notice of sale and the foreclosure sale.

Discussion. The plaintiffs brought actions under G. L. c. 240, § 6, seeking declarations that the defendant mortgagors’ titles had been extinguished and that the plaintiffs were the fee simple owners of the foreclosed properties. As such, the plaintiffs bore the burden of establishing their entitlement to the relief sought. Sheriff’s Meadow Found., Inc. v. Bay-Courte Edgartown, Inc., 401 Mass. 267, 269 (1987). To meet this burden, they were required “not merely to demonstrate better title . . . than the defendants possess, but . . . to prove sufficient title to succeed in [the] action.” Id. See NationsBanc Mtge. Corp. v. Eisenhauer, 49 Mass. App. Ct. 727, 730 (2000). There is no question that the relief the plaintiffs sought required them to establish the validity of the foreclosure sales on which their claim to clear title rested.

Massachusetts does not require a mortgage holder to obtain judicial authorization to foreclose on a mortgaged property. See G. L. c. 183, § 21; G. L. c. 244, § 14. With the exception of the limited judicial procedure aimed at certifying that the mortgagor is not a beneficiary of the Servicemembers Act, a mortgage holder can foreclose on a property, as the plaintiffs did here, by exercise of the statutory power of sale, if such a power is granted by the mortgage itself. See Beaton v. Land Court, 367 Mass. 385, 390-391, 393, appeal dismissed, 423 U.S. 806 (1975).

Where a mortgage grants a mortgage holder the power of sale, as did both the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages, it includes by reference the power of sale set out in G. L. c. 183, § 21, and further regulated by G. L. c. 244, §§ 11-17C. Under G. L. c. 183, § 21, after a mortgagor defaults in the performance of the underlying note, the mortgage holder may sell the property at a public auction and convey the property to the purchaser in fee simple, “and such sale shall forever bar the mortgagor and all persons claiming under him from all right and interest in the mortgaged premises, whether at law or in equity.” Even where there is a dispute as to whether the mortgagor was in default or whether the party claiming to be the mortgage holder is the true mortgage holder, the foreclosure goes forward unless the mortgagor files an action and obtains a court order enjoining the foreclosure.15 See Beaton v. Land Court, supra at 393.

Recognizing the substantial power that the statutory scheme affords to a mortgage holder to foreclose without immediate judicial oversight, we adhere to the familiar rule that “one who sells under a power [of sale] must follow strictly its terms. If he fails to do so there is no valid execution of the power, and the sale is wholly void.” Moore v. Dick, 187 Mass. 207, 211 (1905). See Roche v. Farnsworth, 106 Mass. 509, 513 (1871) (power of sale contained in mortgage “must be executed in strict compliance with its terms”). See also McGreevey v. Charlestown Five Cents Sav. Bank, 294 Mass. 480, 484 (1936).16

One of the terms of the power of sale that must be strictly adhered to is the restriction on who is entitled to foreclose. The “statutory power of sale” can be exercised by “the mortgagee or his executors, administrators, successors or assigns.” G. L. c. 183, § 21. Under G. L. c. 244, § 14, “[t]he mortgagee or person having his estate in the land mortgaged, or a person authorized by the power of sale, or the attorney duly authorized by a writing under seal, or the legal guardian or conservator of such mortgagee or person acting in the name of such mortgagee or person” is empowered to exercise the statutory power of sale. Any effort to foreclose by a party lacking “jurisdiction and authority” to carry out a foreclosure under these statutes is void. Chace v. Morse, 189 Mass. 559, 561 (1905), citing Moore v. Dick, supra. See Davenport v. HSBC Bank USA, 275 Mich. App. 344, 347-348 (2007) (attempt to foreclose by party that had not yet been assigned mortgage results in “structural defect that goes to the very heart of defendant’s ability to foreclose by advertisement,” and renders foreclosure sale void).

A related statutory requirement that must be strictly adhered to in a foreclosure by power of sale is the notice requirement articulated in G. L. c. 244, § 14. That statute provides that “no sale under such power shall be effectual to foreclose a mortgage, unless, previous to such sale,” advance notice of the foreclosure sale has been provided to the mortgagee, to other interested parties, and by publication in a newspaper published in the town where the mortgaged land lies or of general circulation in that town. Id. “The manner in which the notice of the proposed sale shall be given is one of the important terms of the power, and a strict compliance with it is essential to the valid exercise of the power.” Moore v. Dick, supra at 212. See Chace v. Morse, supra (“where a certain notice is prescribed, a sale without any notice, or upon a notice lacking the essential requirements of the written power, would be void as a proceeding for foreclosure”). See also McGreevey v. Charlestown Five Cents Sav. Bank, supra. Because only a present holder of the mortgage is authorized to foreclose on the mortgaged property, and because the mortgagor is entitled to know who is foreclosing and selling the property, the failure to identify the holder of the mortgage in the notice of sale may render the notice defective and the foreclosure sale void.17 See Roche v. Farnsworth, supra (mortgage sale void where notice of sale identified original mortgagee but not mortgage holder at time of notice and sale). See also Bottomly v. Kabachnick, 13 Mass. App. Ct. 480, 483-484 (1982) (foreclosure void where holder of mortgage not identified in notice of sale).

For the plaintiffs to obtain the judicial declaration of clear title that they seek, they had to prove their authority to foreclose under the power of sale and show their compliance with the requirements on which this authority rests. Here, the plaintiffs were not the original mortgagees to whom the power of sale was granted; rather, they claimed the authority to foreclose as the eventual assignees of the original mortgagees. Under the plain language of G. L. c. 183, § 21, and G. L. c. 244, § 14, the plaintiffs had the authority to exercise the power of sale contained in the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages only if they were the assignees of the mortgages at the time of the notice of sale and the subsequent foreclosure sale. See In re Schwartz, 366 B.R. 265, 269 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2007) (“Acquiring the mortgage after the entry and foreclosure sale does not satisfy the Massachusetts statute”).18 See also Jeff-Ray Corp. v. Jacobson, 566 So. 2d 885, 886 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1990) (per curiam) (foreclosure action could not be based on assignment of mortgage dated four months after commencement of foreclosure proceeding).

The plaintiffs claim that the securitization documents they submitted establish valid assignments that made them the holders of the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages before the notice of sale and the foreclosure sale. We turn, then, to the documentation submitted by the plaintiffs to determine whether it met the requirements of a valid assignment.

Like a sale of land itself, the assignment of a mortgage is a conveyance of an interest in land that requires a writing signed by the grantor. See G. L. c. 183, § 3; Saint Patrick’s Religious, Educ. & Charitable Ass’n v. Hale, 227 Mass. 175, 177 (1917). In a “title theory state” like Massachusetts, a mortgage is a transfer of legal title in a property to secure a debt. See Faneuil Investors Group, Ltd. Partnership v. Selectmen of Dennis, 458 Mass. 1, 6 (2010). Therefore, when a person borrows money to purchase a home and gives the lender a mortgage, the homeowner-mortgagor retains only equitable title in the home; the legal title is held by the mortgagee. See Vee Jay Realty Trust Co. v. DiCroce, 360 Mass. 751, 753 (1972), quoting Dolliver v. St. Joseph Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 128 Mass. 315, 316 (1880) (although “as to all the world except the mortgagee, a mortgagor is the owner of the mortgaged lands,” mortgagee has legal title to property); Maglione v. BancBoston Mtge. Corp., 29 Mass. App. Ct. 88, 90 (1990). Where, as here, mortgage loans are pooled together in a trust and converted into mortgage-backed securities, the underlying promissory notes serve as financial instruments generating a potential income stream for investors, but the mortgages securing these notes are still legal title to someone’s home or farm and must be treated as such.

Focusing first on the Ibanez mortgage, U.S. Bank argues that it was assigned the mortgage under the trust agreement described in the PPM, but it did not submit a copy of this trust agreement to the judge. The PPM, however, described the trust agreement as an agreement to be executed in the future, so it only furnished evidence of an intent to assign mortgages to U.S. Bank, not proof of their actual assignment. Even if there were an executed trust agreement with language of present assignment, U.S. Bank did not produce the schedule of loans and mortgages that was an exhibit to that agreement, so it failed to show that the Ibanez mortgage was among the mortgages to be assigned by that agreement. Finally, even if there were an executed trust agreement with the required schedule, U.S. Bank failed to furnish any evidence that the entity assigning the mortgage — Structured Asset Securities Corporation — ever held the mortgage to be assigned. The last assignment of the mortgage on record was from Rose Mortgage to Option One; nothing was submitted to the judge indicating that Option One ever assigned the mortgage to anyone before the foreclosure sale.19 Thus, based on the documents submitted to the judge, Option One, not U.S. Bank, was the mortgage holder at the time of the foreclosure, and U.S. Bank did not have the authority to foreclose the mortgage.

Turning to the LaRace mortgage, Wells Fargo claims that, before it issued the foreclosure notice, it was assigned the LaRace mortgage under the PSA. The PSA, in contrast with U.S. Bank’s PPM, uses the language of a present assignment (“does hereby . . . assign” and “does hereby deliver”) rather than an intent to assign in the future. But the mortgage loan schedule Wells Fargo submitted failed to identify with adequate specificity the LaRace mortgage as one of the mortgages assigned in the PSA. Moreover, Wells Fargo provided the judge with no document that reflected that the ABFC (depositor) held the LaRace mortgage that it was purportedly assigning in the PSA. As with the Ibanez loan, the record holder of the LaRace loan was Option One, and nothing was submitted to the judge which demonstrated that the LaRace loan was ever assigned by Option One to another entity before the publication of the notice and the sale.

Where a plaintiff files a complaint asking for a declaration of clear title after a mortgage foreclosure, a judge is entitled to ask for proof that the foreclosing entity was the mortgage holder at the time of the notice of sale and foreclosure, or was one of the parties authorized to foreclose under G. L. c. 183, § 21, and G. L. c. 244, § 14. A plaintiff that cannot make this modest showing cannot justly proclaim that it was unfairly denied a declaration of clear title. See In re Schwartz, supra at 266 (“When HomEq [Servicing Corporation] was required to prove its authority to conduct the sale, and despite having been given ample opportunity to do so, what it produced instead was a jumble of documents and conclusory statements, some of which are not supported by the documents and indeed even contradicted by them”). See also Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC v. Nelson, 382 Ill. App. 3d 1184, 1188 (2008) (reversing grant of summary judgment in favor of financial entity in foreclosure action, where there was “no evidence that [the entity] ever obtained any legal interest in the subject property”).

We do not suggest that an assignment must be in recordable form at the time of the notice of sale or the subsequent foreclosure sale, although recording is likely the better practice. Where a pool of mortgages is assigned to a securitized trust, the executed agreement that assigns the pool of mortgages, with a schedule of the pooled mortgage loans that clearly and specifically identifies the mortgage at issue as among those assigned, may suffice to establish the trustee as the mortgage holder. However, there must be proof that the assignment was made by a party that itself held the mortgage. See In re Samuels, 415 B.R. 8, 20 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2009). A foreclosing entity may provide a complete chain of assignments linking it to the record holder of the mortgage, or a single assignment from the record holder of the mortgage. See In re Parrish, 326 B.R. 708, 720 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio 2005) (“If the claimant acquired the note and mortgage from the original lender or from another party who acquired it from the original lender, the claimant can meet its burden through evidence that traces the loan from the original lender to the claimant”). The key in either case is that the foreclosing entity must hold the mortgage at the time of the notice and sale in order accurately to identify itself as the present holder in the notice and in order to have the authority to foreclose under the power of sale (or the foreclosing entity must be one of the parties authorized to foreclose under G. L. c. 183, § 21, and G. L. c. 244, § 14).

The judge did not err in concluding that the securitization documents submitted by the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that they were the holders of the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages, respectively, at the time of the publication of the notices and the sales. The judge, therefore, did not err in rendering judgments against the plaintiffs and in denying the plaintiffs’ motions to vacate the judgments.20

We now turn briefly to three other arguments raised by the plaintiffs on appeal. First, the plaintiffs initially contended that the assignments in blank executed by Option One, identifying the assignor but not the assignee, not only “evidence[] and confirm[] the assignments that occurred by virtue of the securitization agreements,” but “are effective assignments in their own right.” But in their reply briefs they conceded that the assignments in blank did not constitute a lawful assignment of the mortgages. Their concession is appropriate. We have long held that a conveyance of real property, such as a mortgage, that does not name the assignee conveys nothing and is void; we do not regard an assignment of land in blank as giving legal title in land to the bearer of the assignment. See Flavin v. Morrissey, 327 Mass. 217, 219 (1951); Macurda v. Fuller, 225 Mass. 341, 344 (1916). See also G. L. c. 183, § 3.

Second, the plaintiffs contend that, because they held the mortgage note, they had a sufficient financial interest in the mortgage to allow them to foreclose. In Massachusetts, where a note has been assigned but there is no written assignment of the mortgage underlying the note, the assignment of the note does not carry with it the assignment of the mortgage. Barnes v. Boardman, 149 Mass. 106, 114 (1889). Rather, the holder of the mortgage holds the mortgage in trust for the purchaser of the note, who has an equitable right to obtain an assignment of the mortgage, which may be accomplished by filing an action in court and obtaining an equitable order of assignment. Id. (“In some jurisdictions it is held that the mere transfer of the debt, without any assignment or even mention of the mortgage, carries the mortgage with it, so as to enable the assignee to assert his title in an action at law. . . . This doctrine has not prevailed in Massachusetts, and the tendency of the decisions here has been, that in such cases the mortgagee would hold the legal title in trust for the purchaser of the debt, and that the latter might obtain a conveyance by a bill in equity”). See Young v. Miller, 6 Gray 152, 154 (1856). In the absence of a valid written assignment of a mortgage or a court order of assignment, the mortgage holder remains unchanged. This common-law principle was later incorporated in the statute enacted in 1912 establishing the statutory power of sale, which grants such a power to “the mortgagee or his executors, administrators, successors or assigns,” but not to a party that is the equitable beneficiary of a mortgage held by another. G. L. c. 183, § 21, inserted by St. 1912, c. 502, § 6.

Third, the plaintiffs initially argued that postsale assignments were sufficient to establish their authority to foreclose, and now argue that these assignments are sufficient when taken in conjunction with the evidence of a presale assignment. They argue that the use of postsale assignments was customary in the industry, and point to Title Standard No. 58 (3) issued by the Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts, which declares: “A title is not defective by reason of . . . [t]he recording of an Assignment of Mortgage executed either prior, or subsequent, to foreclosure where said Mortgage has been foreclosed, of record, by the Assignee.”21 To the extent that the plaintiffs rely on this title standard for the proposition that an entity that does not hold a mortgage may foreclose on a property, and then cure the cloud on title by a later assignment of a mortgage, their reliance is misplaced because this proposition is contrary to G. L. c. 183, § 21, and G. L. c. 244, § 14. If the plaintiffs did not have their assignments to the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages at the time of the publication of the notices and the sales, they lacked authority to foreclose under G. L. c. 183, § 21, and G. L. c. 244, § 14, and their published claims to be the present holders of the mortgages were false. Nor may a postforeclosure assignment be treated as a pre-foreclosure assignment simply by declaring an “effective date” that precedes the notice of sale and foreclosure, as did Option One’s assignment of the LaRace mortgage to Wells Fargo. Because an assignment of a mortgage is a transfer of legal title, it becomes effective with respect to the power of sale only on the transfer; it cannot become effective before the transfer. See In re Schwartz, supra at 269.

However, we do not disagree with Title Standard No. 58 (3) that, where an assignment is confirmatory of an earlier, valid assignment made prior to the publication of notice and execution of the sale, that confirmatory assignment may be executed and recorded after the foreclosure, and doing so will not make the title defective. A valid assignment of a mortgage gives the holder of that mortgage the statutory power to sell after a default regardless whether the assignment has been recorded. See G. L. c. 183, § 21; MacFarlane v. Thompson, 241 Mass. 486, 489 (1922). Where the earlier assignment is not in recordable form or bears some defect, a written assignment executed after foreclosure that confirms the earlier assignment may be properly recorded. See Bon v. Graves, 216 Mass. 440, 444-445 (1914). A confirmatory assignment, however, cannot confirm an assignment that was not validly made earlier or backdate an assignment being made for the first time. See Scaplen v. Blanchard, 187 Mass. 73, 76 (1904) (confirmatory deed “creates no title” but “takes the place of the original deed, and is evidence of the making of the former conveyance as of the time when it was made”). Where there is no prior valid assignment, a subsequent assignment by the mortgage holder to the note holder is not a confirmatory assignment because there is no earlier written assignment to confirm. In this case, based on the record before the judge, the plaintiffs failed to prove that they obtained valid written assignments of the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages before their foreclosures, so the postforeclosure assignments were not confirmatory of earlier valid assignments.

Finally, we reject the plaintiffs’ request that our ruling be prospective in its application. A prospective ruling is only appropriate, in limited circumstances, when we make a significant change in the common law. See Papadopoulos v. Target Corp., 457 Mass. 368, 384 (2010) (noting “normal rule of retroactivity”); Payton v. Abbott Labs, 386 Mass. 540, 565 (1982). We have not done so here. The legal principles and requirements we set forth are well established in our case law and our statutes. All that has changed is the plaintiffs’ apparent failure to abide by those principles and requirements in the rush to sell mortgage-backed securities.

Conclusion. For the reasons stated, we agree with the judge that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that they were the holders of the Ibanez and LaRace mortgages at the time that they foreclosed these properties, and therefore failed to demonstrate that they acquired fee simple title to these properties by purchasing them at the foreclosure sale.

Judgments affirmed.

CORDY, J. (concurring, with whom Botsford, J., joins). I concur fully in the opinion of the court, and write separately only to underscore that what is surprising about these cases is not the statement of principles articulated by the court regarding title law and the law of foreclosure in Massachusetts, but rather the utter carelessness with which the plaintiff banks documented the titles to their assets. There is no dispute that the mortgagors of the properties in question had defaulted on their obligations, and that the mortgaged properties were subject to foreclosure. Before commencing such an action, however, the holder of an assigned mortgage needs to take care to ensure that his legal paperwork is in order. Although there was no apparent actual unfairness here to the mortgagors, that is not the point. Foreclosure is a powerful act with significant consequences, and Massachusetts law has always required that it proceed strictly in accord with the statutes that govern it. As the opinion of the court notes, such strict compliance is necessary because Massachusetts is both a title theory State and allows for extrajudicial foreclosure.

The type of sophisticated transactions leading up to the accumulation of the notes and mortgages in question in these cases and their securitization, and, ultimately the sale of mortgaged-backed securities, are not barred nor even burdened by the requirements of Massachusetts law. The plaintiff banks, who brought these cases to clear the titles that they acquired at their own foreclosure sales, have simply failed to prove that the underlying assignments of the mortgages that they allege (and would have) entitled them to foreclose ever existed in any legally cognizable form before they exercised the power of sale that accompanies those assignments. The court’s opinion clearly states that such assignments do not need to be in recordable form or recorded before the foreclosure, but they do have to have been effectuated.

What is more complicated, and not addressed in this opinion, because the issue was not before us, is the effect of the conduct of banks such as the plaintiffs here, on a bona fide third-party purchaser who may have relied on the foreclosure title of the bank and the confirmative assignment and affidavit of foreclosure recorded by the bank subsequent to that foreclosure but prior to the purchase by the third party, especially where the party whose property was foreclosed was in fact in violation of the mortgage covenants, had notice of the foreclosure, and took no action to contest it.

1 For the Structured Asset Securities Corporation Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2006-Z.

2 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., trustee, vs. Mark A. LaRace

& another.

3 The Appeals Court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to consolidate these cases.

4 Chief Justice Marshall participated in the deliberation on this case prior to her retirement.

5 We acknowledge the amicus briefs filed by the Attorney General; the Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts, Inc.; Marie McDonnell; and the National Consumer Law Center, together with Darlene Manson, Germano DePina, Robert Lane, Ann Coiley, Roberto Szumik, and Geraldo Dosanjos.

6 The uncertainty surrounding the first issue was the reason the plaintiffs sought a declaration of clear title in order to obtain title insurance for these properties. The second issue was raised by the judge in the LaRace case at a January 5, 2009, case management conference.

7 The judge also concluded that the Boston Globe was a newspaper of general circulation in Springfield, so the foreclosures were not rendered invalid on that ground because notice was published in that newspaper.

8 In the third case, LaSalle Bank National Association, trustee for the certificate holders of Bear Stearns Asset Backed Securities I, LLC Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2007-HE2 vs. Freddy Rosario, the judge concluded that the mortgage foreclosure “was not rendered invalid by its failure to record the assignment reflecting its status as holder of the mortgage prior to the foreclosure since it was, in fact, the holder by assignment at the time of the foreclosure, it truthfully claimed that status in the notice, and it could have produced proof of that status (the unrecorded assignment) if asked.”

9 On June 1, 2009, attorneys for the defendant mortgagors filed their appearance in the cases for the first time.

10 The LaRace defendants allege that the documents submitted to the judge following the plaintiffs’ motions to vacate judgment are not properly in the record before us. They also allege that several of these documents are not properly authenticated. Because we affirm the judgment on other grounds, we do not address these concerns, and assume that these documents are properly before us and were adequately authenticated.

11 This signed and notarized document states: “FOR VALUE RECEIVED, the undersigned hereby grants, assigns and transfers to _______ all beneficial interest under that certain Mortgage dated December 1, 2005 executed by Antonio Ibanez . . . .”

12 The Structured Asset Securities Corporation is a wholly owned direct subsidiary of Lehman Commercial Paper Inc., which is in turn a wholly owned, direct subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

13 As implemented in Massachusetts, a mortgage holder is required to go to court to obtain a judgment declaring that the mortgagor is not a beneficiary of the Servicemembers Act before proceeding to foreclosure. St. 1943, c. 57, as amended through St. 1998, c. 142.

14 The Land Court judge questioned whether American Home Mortgage Servicing, Inc., was in fact a successor in interest to Option One. Given our affirmance of the judgment on other grounds, we need not address this question.

15 An alternative to foreclosure through the right of statutory sale is foreclosure by entry, by which a mortgage holder who peaceably enters a property and remains for three years after recording a certificate or memorandum of entry forecloses the mortgagor’s right of redemption. See G. L. c. 244, §§ 1, 2; Joyner v. Lenox Sav. Bank, 322 Mass. 46, 52-53 (1947). A foreclosure by entry may provide a separate ground for a claim of clear title apart from the foreclosure by execution of the power of sale. See, e.g., Grabiel v. Michelson, 297 Mass. 227, 228-229 (1937). Because the plaintiffs do not claim clear title based on foreclosure by entry, we do not discuss it further.

16 We recognize that a mortgage holder must not only act in strict compliance with its power of sale but must also “act in good faith and . . . use reasonable diligence to protect the interests of the mortgagor,” and this responsibility is “more exacting” where the mortgage holder becomes the buyer at the foreclosure sale, as occurred here. See Williams v. Resolution GGF Oy, 417 Mass. 377, 382-383 (1994), quoting Seppala & Aho Constr. Co. v. Petersen, 373 Mass. 316, 320 (1977). Because the issue was not raised by the defendant mortgagors or the judge, we do not consider whether the plaintiffs breached this obligation.

17 The form of foreclosure notice provided in G. L. c. 244, § 14, calls for the present holder of the mortgage to identify itself and sign the notice. While the statute permits other forms to be used and allows the statutory form to be “altered as circumstances require,” G. L. c. 244, § 14, we do not interpret this flexibility to suggest that the present holder of the mortgage need not identify itself in the notice.

18 The plaintiffs were not authorized to foreclose by virtue of any of the other provisions of G. L. c. 244, § 14: they were not the guardian or conservator, or acting in the name of, a person so authorized; nor were they the attorney duly authorized by a writing under seal.

19 Ibanez challenges the validity of this assignment to Option One. Because of the failure of U.S. Bank to document any preforeclosure sale assignment or chain of assignments by which it obtained the Ibanez mortgage from Option One, it is unnecessary to address the validity of the assignment from Rose Mortgage to Option One.

20 The plaintiffs have not pressed the procedural question whether the judge exceeded his authority in rendering judgment against them on their motions for default judgment, and we do not address it here.

21 Title Standard No. 58 (3) issued by the Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts continues: “However, if the Assignment is not dated prior, or stated to be effective prior, to the commencement of a foreclosure, then a foreclosure sale after April 19, 2007 may be subject to challenge in the Bankruptcy Court,” citing In re Schwartz, 366 B.R. 265 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2007).

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