Burgest v. HSBC Bank, USA, N.A.

91 Va. Cir. 266, 2015 Va. Cir. LEXIS 142
CourtNorfolk County Circuit Court
DecidedOctober 9, 2015
DocketCase No. CL14-8747
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 91 Va. Cir. 266 (Burgest v. HSBC Bank, USA, N.A.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Norfolk County Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Burgest v. HSBC Bank, USA, N.A., 91 Va. Cir. 266, 2015 Va. Cir. LEXIS 142 (Va. Super. Ct. 2015).

Opinion

By Judge Mary Jane Hall

This matter comes before the Court on demurrers filed by each defendant to the Complaint herein. The respective positions and multiple grounds in support of demurrer were extensively briefed and thoroughly addressed in oral argument. The Court sustains the demurrers on one ground only. The Court rules as a matter of law that the underlying transaction by which HSBC Bank acquired rights to Plaintiff’s note and deed of trust was voidable and not void. Because the transaction had not been voided when HSBC took the actions of which Plaintiff complains, including the foreclosure sale of Plaintiff’s residence, the causes of action articulated in the Complaint fail as a matter of law. The Court sustains the demurrers by both defendants with leave to amend granted on the narrow basis set forth herein only as to Counts I, III, and IV.

[267]*267 Factual Background

The facts involved in this controversy are pleaded in extraordinary detail in the Complaint, and the Court need not recite them herein with the same level of detail. To summarize, Plaintiff took out a mortgage loan from Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., in 2005, which loan was secured by a deed of trust against her Norfolk residence. The beneficiary of that deed of trust was Mortgage Electronic Registrations Systems, Inc.; (“MERS”), a nominee for the lender, its successors, and assigns. Plaintiff acknowledges that as of November 27, 2007, the mortgage loan was in “arrears.” She also admits that was in default prior to August of 2013.

By a document dated November 30, 2007 (Exhibit B to the Complaint) MERS assigned its beneficial interest in Plaintiff’s deed of trust to HSBC, which the Complaint describes as a securitized trust operating under New York law. The Complaint alleges that the trust instrument by which HSBC operates forbids the purchase of any loan into the trust after a cut-off date and grace period unless the loan was current; and Plaintiff’s loan was not. In 2011, HSBC transferred to Bank of America its claims to the note. (Exhibit D to the Complaint.) The Complaint alleges in paragraph 25, “Thereafter, HSBC claimed to purchase back the rights to the note.” This transaction by which HSBC reacquired rights to the note and deed of trust forms the basis of the Court’s discussion herein; yet it is the one transfer that is not documented by copy of a recorded document. The Complaint does not specify by what means HSBC “claimed” to purchase back the obligation.

The Complaint does not, as HSBC strenuously argues, allege that HSBC lacked actual possession of the Note when it effected the appointment of a substitute trustee and a subsequent foreclosure; Plaintiff alleges instead that the attempt by HSBC to purchase back the note was void under New York law because that action breached the founding principles of the securitized trust.

HSBC appointed Defendant Commonwealth Trustees, L.L.C., as a substitute trustee, and Commonwealth conducted a foreclosure sale on February 11, 2014. Plaintiff alleges that the purported appointment of the substitute trustee was invalid because HSBC was not the holder of the Note.

Although the record does not include any documentation of the transaction by which Bank of America purported to convey its interest in the loan documents back to HSBC, the parties have not disputed that such a transaction did take place. The note itself is part of the record as an exhibit to HSBC’s motion craving oyer, which the Court sustained without objection; and the note is endorsed in blank. If HSBC is the holder of the note, as it argues, it had the right to enforce it. Plaintiff claims that HSBC was not the holder of the Note, not because it lacked possession but because it allegedly had no authority to reacquire a defaulted note into the securitized trust.

Plaintiff sues for breach of contract, for which she claims the remedy of rescission of the foreclosure sale and trustee’s deed as well as compensatory [268]*268damages against both defendants (Count I); theft of land (Count II); and actual and constructive fraud by HSBC, consisting of the false representation that it was the holder of the note and was acting properly through Commonwealth Trustees to foreclose on the home. (Counts III and IV.)

Plaintiff’s counsel acknowledged at oral argument that her claims depended upon a determination that the purported acquisition of the note by HSBC was void and not merely voidable. As the Complaint alleges:

Because the purported repurchase by assignment ofthe Burgest mortgage loan to HSBC was void, HSBC (as the securitized trust) did not obtain re-purchase of the Burgest mortgage loan and lacked any interest in the Burgest mortgage loan when it subsequently (in December 2013 and in 2014) attempted to appoint Commonwealth Trustees as substitute trustee and had no standing in 2014 to seek a foreclosure sale of the home when it attempted to foreclose.

Compl., ¶ 26(00).

The Court follows the greater weight of the case law that has examined this very legal issue under New York law and rules that such transaction was not void but voidable.

Discussion

Plaintiff contends that HSBC was not the holder of the note because its purported reacquisition of this defaulted note violated the founding principles of the securitized trust. Under New York law, the validity of ultra vires actions taken by trustees is governed by Section 7-2.4 of New York Estate, Power, and Trust Law (“section 7-2.4”). This section provides that:

If the trust is expressed in the instrument creating the estate of the trustee, every sale, conveyance or other act of the trustee in contravention of the trust, except as authorized by this article and by any other provision of law, is void.

N.Y. Est. Powers & Trust Law § 7-2.4 (Consol. 2015).

The language of section 7-2.4 expressly provides that an act by a trustee is “void” if it contravenes the trust instrument and is not otherwise authorized under New York law. Plaintiff emphasizes the clarity of that statutory language and relies heavily on two New York trial court decisions that applied section 7-2.4 as written, finding that trustees’ ultra vires actions were void ab initio. Dye v. Lewis, 67 Misc. 2d 426, 427, 326 N.Y.S.2d 172, 175 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1971); Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Erobobo, 39 Misc. 2d 1220(A), 972 N.Y.S. 2d 147 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2013), overruled on other grounds, 127 A.D.3d 1176, 9 N.Y.S.3d 312 (N.Y. App. Div. 2015), appeal [269]*269denied 2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 82800 (N.Y. Aug. 27, 2015). This approach has sporadically appeared in other New York trial court decisions, e.g., Auroa Loan Services, L.L.C. v. Scheller, No. 2009-22839, 43 Misc. 3d 1226(A), 2014 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 2276, at *7 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 22, 2014); In re Dana, 119 Misc. 2d 815, 820, 465 N.Y.S. 2d 102, 105 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1982); and at least one other jurisdiction has adopted this position. Glaski v. Bank of America, 218 Cal. App. 4th 1079, 1096-97, 160 Cal. Rptr. 3d 449; 464 (Cal. App. 2013).

Crucially, however, other New York trial courts have rejected the literal reading of section 7-2.4 that Plaintiff asks this Court to apply. Many courts applying this statute have concluded that a trustee’s ultra vires action is voidable, rather than void.

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91 Va. Cir. 266, 2015 Va. Cir. LEXIS 142, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burgest-v-hsbc-bank-usa-na-vaccnorfolk-2015.