Arizona Bankruptcy Court Halts Foreclosure Action As Lender Lacked Standing To Prosecute, Not A Party In Interest

A recent ruling by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tucson, Arizona refused to allow a foreclosing lender's request to continue with a foreclosure action on the grounds that it failed to establish that it was the real party in interest and lacked standing to prosecute the matter.(1)

For the court's ruling, see In re: Barry Weisband, Ch. 13, Case No. 4:09-bk-05175-EWH (Bankr. D. Ariz., Tucson Div., 3/29/2010).

(1) The basis for the court's denial of the foreclosing lender's ["GMAC"] request addressed the following three points:

• GMAC's failure to demonstrated that it was a holder of the note under under §47-3301 of the Arizona statute ("while it was in possession of the Note at the evidentiary hearing, it failed to demonstrate that the Note is properly payable to GMAC. A special endorsement to GMAC was admitted into evidence with the Note. However, for the Endorsement to constitute part of the Note, it must be on "a paper affixed to the instrument." A.R.S. § 47-3204; see also In re Nash, 49 B.R. 254, 261 (Bankr. D. Ariz. 1985). Here, the evidence did not demonstrate that the Endorsement was affixed to the Note. The Endorsement is on a separate sheet of paper; there was no evidence that it was stapled or otherwise attached to the rest of the Note. Furthermore, when GMAC filed its proof of claim, the Endorsement was not included, which is a further indication that the allonge containing the Endorsement was not affixed to the Note.),

• The MERS assignment of the deed of trust (ie. mortgage) did not provide GMAC with standing (MERS was named in the deed of trust as a beneficiary, solely as the "nominee" of GreenPoint Mortgage Funding, Inc. (the original lender), holding only "legal title" to the interests granted to the original lender funding the loan secured by the deed of trust. According to the ruling, "a number of cases have held that such language confers no economic benefit on MERS"),

• GMAC was unable to establish that it was the servicer of the promissory note (the evidence in this case did not demonstrate that the promissory note and deed of trust were properly transferred to the "special purpose" securitization trust ("Trust") holding the pool of loans, and, "without that evidence, there is no demonstration that GMAC is the servicer of the Note." In light of this, the court stated that "it is immaterial that GMAC is the servicer for the Trust.").