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By Scott T. Dillon
A Brooklyn homeowner is quickly becoming the poster child for foreclosure defense after a Supreme Court justice dismissed HSBC’s lawsuit against her, calling it a “frivolous motion” and a “waste of judicial resources,” according to a New York Daily News report.
In fact, documents for HSBC’s foreclosure action against Ellen Tahrer were so riddled with errors and false statements that Kings County Justice Arthur Schack ordered the bank’s North American chief executive to appear in court on July 15 to explain the sloppy case. HSBC could not even prove it owned Tahrer’s $475,000 mortgage, which the bank claimed it acquired from another lender that declared bankruptcy in 2007, according to the Daily News.
The case of Tahrer, a laid off American Express worker of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, provides a prime example of why homeowners need to aggressively defend against lenders’ foreclosure actions. The lender could not even prove it had the legal standing to bring the foreclosure action by failing to prove ownership of the mortgage. Failure to defend the foreclosure by the homeowner would have resulted with the court granting the sale. Other foreclosure defense strategies include pointing out defects in lenders’ foreclosure documents, some of which might have been prepared by notorious “robo-signers,” or showing how the lender failed to comply with state or federal laws.
By mounting an aggressive foreclosure defense homeowners can defend their rights and obtain themselves time to explore alternatives to just rolling over and letting a lender take their home. As the Daily News notes, Justice Schack’s decision could freeze HSBC’s action against Tahrer for one to two years. In some cases, the entire foreclosure case can be dismissed. Homeowners who have received foreclosure notices should immediately contact a foreclosure defense attorney.
Scott T. Dillon is a senior associate at Tully Rinckey PLLC in Albany, N.Y., where he is the lead attorney in the firm’s bankruptcy department. He handles cases involving bankruptcy and debt relief issues and Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) violations. He can be reached at 1-888-Law-4-Life or 1888Law4Life.com. For more information please visit www.tullylegal.com.
