Enforcement of Note vs. Enforcement of Mortgage

Watch out for the discrepancy between enforcement of a note and enforcement of an encumbrance. Enforcement of the note requires proof that the claimant is the owner of the debt, or has been authorized by the owner of the debt to enforce the note. Enforcement of the mortgage requires that the claimant be the owner of the debt. 

Judgment on the note can be rendered based upon legal presumptions arising from the UCC as adopted by state law as it applies to negotiable instruments. Mortgages (deeds of trust) are not negotiable instruments. The courts err when they apply Article 3 presumptions to the enforcement of a mortgage.

And take note that not all promissory notes are necessarily negotiable instruments and that therefore they too are not entitled to the benefit of legal presumptions under Article 3.

Always remember that legal presumptions are not intended to created findings of act that are contrary to reality. Quite the contrary, they are intended only as a convenience by which the court, in the absence of any meaningful objection, can presume such facts as part of its conclusion; no presumption should be employed if the evidence is tinged with a self serving nature and produced by the named claimant, and all such presumptions are rebuttable by exposing the reality. 

THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A LEGAL OPINION UPON WHICH YOU CAN RELY IN ANY INDIVIDUAL CASE. HIRE A LAWYER.
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 Possession of the original note usually results in a presumption that the possessor is a holder, and being holder usually results in the presumption that the holder is authorized to enforce as an agent of the owner of the debt.

Those are the rules for negotiable paper (notes). It is easier to state a case for enforcement of the note than enforcement of a mortgage or deed of trust. The intent in the law is to make it easy for notes to flow through the marketplace as cash equivalents. 

It is entirely possible for the same party to be awarded judgment on a note and denied judgment for enforcement of a mortgage or deed of trust, which are not negotiable instruments. An assignment of mortgage without a transfer of the debt is a nullity. But when the note is transferred, that is generally treated as though title to the debt has been transferred. That is an error in most cases involving claims of “securitization.” The reason it is an error is that the transferor of the note did not own the debt.

Both the endorsement of the note and the assignment of the mortgage can be attacked on the basis that authorization from the owner of the debt has not been shown. But the burden is on the claimed debtor (You) to rebut the assumptions and presumptions.

The only way to do that appears to be through discovery in which you request the owner of the debt to be identified. This is tricky and the other side knows it. They will reply that a designated party has some sort of authority to claim ownership without actually saying that they are the owner. So if you merely ask for the owner of the debt to be identified you probably won’t get very far.

You need to probe deeper than that. Go to an accountant and find out what the attributes are under GAAP and the FASB of an owner of the debt. The answer will be that the owner will have entries in its own books and records of an asset consisting of the claimed debt. Those entries must include an entry on the asset side of the amount of the supposed debt. Usually on the liability side there is a reserve for bad debt or default.

Any accountant will tell you that if the loan is not carried as  an asset on the books and records of the named claimant, they are not the owner of the debt.

This dichotomy is revealed easily in Article 3 UCC as adopted by state statute, which applies to notes and Article 9 UCC as adopted by state statute which applies to mortgages.

The legislative intent is that nobody should be allowed to enforce a mortgage without actually owning the debt. This is backed up by your jurisdictional argument, to wit: the party named as claiming the right to foreclose is not the party who will receive the benefits of that remedy because they have no financial injury in the first place. 

It’s one thing to get a money judgment against someone. But the legislature of every state has already decided that is quite another thing to take the homestead away from a homeowner. The big safeguard is the requirement that the claimant in foreclosure actually has ownership of the debt and therefore would be injured financially if the encumbrance were not enforced. 

Tags: Article 3 UCC, article 9 UCC, DEED OF TRUST, Mortgage, negotiable instrument, note, presumptions
Posted in evidence, foreclosure defenses, legal standing, Pleading |