{"id":635,"date":"2011-01-19T11:19:43","date_gmt":"2011-01-19T16:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=635"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","slug":"a-new-weapon-against-foreclosures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/01\/19\/a-new-weapon-against-foreclosures\/","title":{"rendered":"A new weapon against foreclosures?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"title\" style=\"color: #000000\"><\/h2>\n<div id=\"stats\" class=\"clearfloat\" style=\"font-weight: bold;color: #505050\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry clearfloat\" style=\"color: #505050\">\n<p style=\"font-style: inherit\"><em>Rachel Lauter<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style: inherit\">Last week, Massachusetts\u2019 highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, handed down its ruling in the\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #000000\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110124042713\/http:\/\/www.legalnewsline.com\/news\/230638-mass.-sc-rules-against-lenders-in-foreclosure-cases\">Ibanez case<\/a>, affirming a lower court\u2019s ruling which invalidated two foreclosures based on U.S Bancorp and Wells Fargo\u2019s improper paperwork. The ruling affirms that banks must show that they were assignees of the mortgages at the time of the foreclosure. \u00a0That is, if they were not the original lender, banks must show they were properly assigned the mortgage\u2013 the document that gives the lender the right to have the property sold to repay the loan if the borrower defaults. The decision has been interpreted as a major\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #000000\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110124042713\/http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/08\/business\/08mortgage.html\">warning<\/a>\u00a0to banks throughout the country, and a general \u201cwin\u201d for homeowners who are being foreclosed on.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style: inherit\">While this may be a novel issue to some, for months now, legal services attorneys and student advocates in Boston from the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and Greater Boston Legal Services have been making the same argument in local housing courts. \u00a0(Full disclosure: \u00a0I am outgoing president of the Bureau.) \u00a0The Ibanez decision confirms that they may continue using this powerful defense. Hopefully, advocates in other states will soon be bolstered by similar decisions in their state courts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style: inherit\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-style: inherit\">While some may be looking to the federal government for solutions on how to stem foreclosures, the Ibanez decision shows that some problems can be solved at the local level with the assistance of competent attorneys. Legal services attorneys and student advocates have already prevented countless individuals from being evicted from their homes post-foreclosure by making arguments based on the mechanics of mortgages, assignments, and foreclosures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rachel Lauter Last week, Massachusetts\u2019 highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, handed down its ruling in the\u00a0Ibanez case, affirming a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-af","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}