Shepherd v. Burson

In 2008, the General Assembly enacted a statute to require that a foreclosing lender provide advance written notice to the borrower of its intention to foreclosure. Among the information to be provided in that notice is the identity of the "secured party," although the statute does not specifically define that phrase. In this case, there was more than one entity that qualified as a "secured party" under the commonly understood meaning of the phrase. At issue before the Court of Appeals was whether, in such a situation, a foreclosing party was obligated to identify all secured parties in the advance written notice to the borrower. The Court held (1) a foreclosing party should ordinarily identify, in the notice of intent to foreclose, each entity that is a "secured party" with respect to the deed of trust in question; (2) however, a failure to disclose every secured party is not a basis for dismissing a foreclosure action when certain conditions are met; and (3) under the circumstances of the instant case, because many of the enumerated conditions were met even though the notice failed to disclose every secured party, the dismissal of the foreclosure action was not required. View "Shepherd v. Burson" on Justia Law