U.S.Bank National Association v. Chancellor

2024 IL App (1st) 220743-U
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided April 29, 2024·No. 1-22-0743·Unpublished

Opinion

2024 IL App (1st) 220743-U No. 1-22-0743

FIRST DIVISION

April 29, 2024

NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT

U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION AS ) Appeal from the Circuit Court of TRUSTEE FOR JPMORGAN MORTGAGE ) Cook County. ACQUISITION TRUST 2006-CW1, )

)

)

Plaintiff-Appellee, ) No. 2020 CH 02162 )

v. )

)

TERENCE CHANCELLOR and DOROTHY ) CHANCELLOR, ) The Honorable ) Marian E. Perkins,

Defendant-Appellants. ) Judge Presiding.

JUSTICE PUCINSKI delivered the judgment of the court.

Presiding Justice Fitzgerald Smith and Justice Coghlan concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

Held: In this mortgage foreclosure action, we affirm the decision of the circuit court granting plaintiff summary judgment and confirming the judicial sale of the property, where the record is insufficient to assess any claims of error.

¶1 In this mortgage foreclosure action, defendant-appellants Terence and Dorothy Chancellor (defendants) appealed after the circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiff- appellee U.S. Bank National Association as Trustee for JPMorgan Mortgage Acquisition Trust

2006-CW1 (“U.S. Bank”) and confirmed the subsequent judicial sale of the subject property. For the following reasons, we affirm.

¶2 BACKGROUND

¶3 This action stems from a loan and mortgage executed by Terence Chancellor (Terence), the husband of Dorothy Chancellor. The record reflects that on February 17, 2006, Terence executed a promissory note in the amount of $189,000 to the original lender, Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. The note required him to make monthly payments of $1181.25 for the first 60 months, to be followed by monthly payments in the amount of $1396.69. On the same date, Terence executed a corresponding mortgage that encumbered the defendants’ residence at 252 S. Ellis Avenue in Glenwood, Illinois (the property).

¶4 In February 2009, Terence executed a “Loan Modification Agreement (Step Rate”) that identified Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP (Countrywide) as the “Lender.” The loan modification agreement stated that the initial monthly payment would be in the amount of $735.49, but that the “scheduled monthly payment may change on that day of every twelfth month thereafter” as set forth elsewhere in the agreement. The agreement elsewhere specified that the applicable interest rate would increase each year on March 1, the “Change Date”, with a new monthly payment to be calculated by Countrywide. Notably, the copy of the loan modification agreement in the record reflects that it was signed by Terence on February 18, 2009. However, the signature block for Countrywide reflects that it was not executed until October 15, 2014 by Kenneth Hampton, identified as a “Document Control Officer.”

¶5 A rider to the loan modification agreement recites the parties’ understanding that “Borrower [Terence] was discharged in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding after the execution of the Note and Security Instruments” but that the loan modification agreement “does not affect the

discharge of Borrower’s personal liability on the Note.” That rider contains a signature by Terence dated February 18, 2009, but the document reflects that it was executed on October 15, 2014, by “Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. as Attorney in Fact” for Countrywide.

¶6 On February 21, 2020, U.S. Bank filed a foreclosure complaint naming defendants, as well as “Unknown Tenants” and “Unknown Owners and Non-Record Claimants.” According to the complaint, the loan was in default due to “the failure to make the March 1, 2010 and subsequent monthly installment payments due under the terms of the mortgage and note.” Copies of the loan and mortgage were attached to U.S. Bank’s complaint as Exhibits A and B. A copy of the loan modification agreement was attached as Exhibit C.

¶7 U.S. Bank’s complaint also attached assignments reflecting that (1) in February 2012, the mortgage was assigned to “Bank of America, N.A., Successor by Merger to BA Home Loans Services, LP FKA Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP” and (2) in September 2013, the mortgage was assigned to U.S. Bank.

¶8 Defendants represented themselves in trial court proceedings and remain pro se in this appeal. In March 2020, defendants filed an answer and a motion to dismiss alleging seven affirmative defenses. Among these, they alleged that U.S. Bank lacked standing and capacity to sue because the “Original Lender was Fremont Investment and Loan” and that the original date of mortgage was January 31, 2005. Thus, they alleged the complaint was a “fraud.” They also alleged that when Countrywide solicited Terence for a refinance of his mortgage in 2006, it committed “predatory lending” and violated the “Truth in lending Act (TILA).” The motion to dismiss also stated that the mortgage “was the subject of a federal bankruptcy” filed by Terence in 2018 “of which Defendant[s] Mortgage amount due was discharged.”

¶9 Another affirmative defense was entitled “Expiration of the 10 year Illinois Statute of Limitations.” Defendants alleged that after Terence signed a loan modification agreement in February 2009, they “never made any additional payments on the step rate 2/5/2009 loan modification agreement after July 2009 because in August of 2009 Bank of America, the then loan servicer, offered Defendants a Making home affordable trial Payment Plan agreement of which Defendants accepted, with 3 payments required in the amount of $950 which were Completed in September 2009, October 2009, [and] November 2009.” Defendants pleaded that “[a]s of March 23, 2020 there have been no payments made within the last 11+ years on the loan modification step rate agreement dated February 5, 2009 wherefore Plaintiff’s Complaint is Time barred by the 10 year statute of limitation of contracts.”

¶ 10 Defendants also asserted an affirmative defense of “unclean hands”, insofar as the February 2009 loan rate modification “remained unexecuted for 5+ years until a servicer on behalf of Plaintiff [nominee] Select Portfolio Servicing document officer Kenneth Hampton, without Defendants consent and without clear authority executed the step rate note 5+ years later” in October 2014. In another affirmative defense, defendants alleged that they “received an offer from the new loan servicer Bank of America who offered Defendants a Making Homes Affordable Contract (TPP) trial payment plan contract which requires 3 consecutive payments of $950.00.” Defendants pleaded that they made those payments in 2009, but U.S. Bank “did not comply with the Trial Payment Plan contract agreement.”

¶ 11 The motion to dismiss attached several exhibits, including an August 2011 letter from the Office of the Illinois Attorney General reflecting that it was “reviewing [Terence’s] complaint” regarding Bank of America. Defendants also attached a September 2011 letter from Bank of America in response to a complaint from Terence, which stated:

“In your correspondence, you stated that you have been trying to obtain a permanent modification since 2008 and in November 2010 Bank of America stated that the agreed trial payments of $930.00 would not be accepted [because] the investor JP Morgan/Chase does not participate in the Making Homes Affordable (MHA) program and/or The Attorney General (AG) program. You expressed dissatisfaction with the inquiry of your communication as well as with the level of customer service you received from Bank of America. You further expressed concern regarding not receiving a modification decline letter and your property being placed in foreclosure. * * *

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U.S.Bank National Association v. Chancellor, 2024 IL App (1st) 220743-U (Ill. Ct. App. 2024).

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