Washington State AG: Some Of The Largest Foreclosure Trustees Have Failed To Comply With 'In-State Office' Requirements When Conducting Forced Sales

In Seattle, Washington, the Seattle Post Intelligencer reports:

• Mortgage trustees handling many foreclosures in Washington are violating a state law intended to help people get in touch with them, the Washington Attorney General's Office announced Wednesday.
• "Foreclosures run on strict timelines and homeowners need a human who they can talk with face to face when there's a problem. They need an office where they can make last-minute payments or show documents that may prove reasons for stopping forced sales," Attorney General Rob McKenna said in a news release.
• "Washington law requires that foreclosure trustees maintain actual offices in our state and local phone numbers for this reason. But our investigation shows that some of the largest trustees are not in compliance and borrowers who have a legitimate reason to stop a foreclosure are having trouble reaching trustees."(1)

For more, see Troubled homeowners can't reach many mortgage trustees, AG says.

For the Washington AG press release, see Washington Attorney General’s investigation turns up additional foreclosure process problems (Attorney General steps in to ensure homeowners can contact foreclosure trustees):

• [T]he office sent a letter [] to all trustees operating in the state that notifies them of their obligations.

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• [AG Rob] McKenna sent a letter to 52 trustees in October 2010, announcing its concerns about inaccurate documents, conflicts-of-interest, faulty chains of title and failure to provide disclosures and conduct mediations. The letter called on trustees to suspend any questionable foreclosures. Since then, the office has requested and received documents from several trustees. Attorneys are reviewing the information they have received so far and are waiting for documents from other companies.

(1) The next question to be addressed here, as it is in all these 'technicality' screw-up cases, in connection with those foreclosure/trustees' sales that have already taken place, and where strict compliance with the law was not met, is:

• Does the failure to strictly comply with this requirement make the sale at auction (and any further subsequent sales to 'downstream' 3rd party bona fide purchasers) wholly void (ie. void ab initio, nugatory, without effect, etc.) and subject to attack at any time, or merely voidable (although defective, nevertheless valid as to bona fide purchasers), where any attack thereon is subject to restrictions???

See Albice v. Premier Mortgage Services Of Washington, Inc., 157 Wn. App. 912; 239 P.3d 1148 (Wn. Ct. of App., Div. 2, September 28, 2010) for a recent Washington State case where a three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals found that a procedural flaw in the foreclosure process rendered the trustees' sale wholly void, and thereby left an unwitting investor at the auction who bought the subject property holding the bag, despite any claim on his part of bona fide purchaser protection.

For the briefs filed in Albice, see:

• Albice - Opening Brief,
• Albice - Respondent's Brief,
• Albice - Reply Brief.