More On Challenge To Massachusetts' New 'Ibanez Defects" Title Clearing Law

MassLive reports:

• A group of anti-foreclosure activists is trying to repeal a new Massachusetts law that limits the amount of time a person has to challenge a foreclosure and get his home back.
  
  Grace Ross, coordinator of the Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending, a coalition of 70 groups that is leading the repeal effort, said the law "essentially tries to sweep illegal foreclosures...under the carpet." "The (title insurance) industry doesn't really care if we have constitutional rights, but we care if we have constitutional rights," Ross said.
  
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  Under current law, someone who believes his home was illegally foreclosed on has 20 years to challenge the foreclosure in court. If the person wins, he could potentially get his home back.
  
  During and after the 2008 market crash, unscrupulous practices by some banks combined with overly complex transactions made improperly executed foreclosures a major problem nationwide. In Massachusetts, the problem is even more widespread since a 2011 Supreme Judicial Court ruling [ie. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Ibanez, 458 Mass. 673, 941 N.E.2d 40 (2011)] found that practices that were the industry standard, relating to who actually held a title at the time of a foreclosure, did not comply with Massachusetts law.
  
  As a result of the uncertainty, homeowners who bought foreclosed properties may have trouble selling or refinancing their homes.
  
  The new law gives the person whose home was foreclosed on three years after a foreclosure or one year after the law was passed, whichever is later, to begin a court challenge to get his home back. After that time, if a court challenge has not been initiated, the person can still sue the bank that foreclosed for monetary damages, but he cannot get his house back.
  
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  The activists say the law is unconstitutional. For one, they say the law's effective date is too early. The state constitution requires a 90-day window before a new, non-emergency law becomes effective, and this law does not have that. More substantively, they argue that the law violates the contracts clause of the U.S. Constitution by altering the terms of existing mortgages. They say the courts, not the Legislature, have authority over title clearing.
  
  They also argue that the law has a disparate impact on people of color and female heads of households, who were most frequently given subprime mortgages and who were the first to lose their homes to foreclosures. There are an estimated 68,000 Massachusetts residents who lost their homes to foreclosure since 2005, according to opponents of the bill.
  
  "The colloquial term for these mortgages in the business is 'mud people mortgages,'" said Sarah McKee, a former federal prosecutor from Amherst, who signed the petition to suspend the law. McKee said the fact that minorities and women are disproportionately affected makes the law illegal under the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
  
  The New England Area Conference of the NAACP and other organizations representing minorities sent the Legislature a letter opposing the bill. They wrote in September that the bill "will codify illegal, racially discriminatory lending practices and cause additional harm to our communities of color."
  
  Ross said coalition members will challenge the law in court. Meanwhile, they are pursuing a process that allows voters to suspend a law, then vote on it. The group filed a petition with 10 signatures with Secretary of State William Galvin, and the petition is being reviewed by Attorney General Maura Healey to make sure it is allowed by law. The group then has until Feb. 23 to file 43,167 certified voter signatures with Galvin's office. If they succeed, the law will be suspended until voters decide in November whether to repeal it.

For more, see Anti-foreclosure activists challenge Massachusetts' new title clearing law.