{"id":661,"date":"2011-09-10T20:53:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T20:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=661"},"modified":"2023-12-21T17:17:08","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:17:08","slug":"bank-cannot-suggest-a-homeowner-stop-mortgage-payments-as-part-of-modification-negotiations-and-then-foreclose-on-the-basis-of-that-failure-to-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2011\/09\/10\/bank-cannot-suggest-a-homeowner-stop-mortgage-payments-as-part-of-modification-negotiations-and-then-foreclose-on-the-basis-of-that-failure-to-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank cannot suggest a homeowner stop mortgage payments as part of modification negotiations and then foreclose on the basis of that failure to pay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A federal District Court judge in Massachusetts has ruled in the case of<a href=\"http:\/\/pacer.mad.uscourts.gov\/dc\/opinions\/young\/pdf\/dixon%20v%20wells%20fargo%20bank.pdf\" class=\"mtli_attachment mtli_pdf\">\u00a0Dixon v. Wells Fargo Bank<\/a>, 2011 WL 2945795 (D. Mass. 2011), that a ban cannot induce a homeowner to stop making mortgage payments as a prerequisite to negotiations to modify the mortgage and then use that failure to make the mortgage payments as a predicate for foreclosing on the property and evicting the owner. The bank&#8217;s representation that it would renegotiate following the borrower&#8217;s cessation of mortgage payments constituted a promise on which the borrower reasonably relied and that promise could be equitably enforced by denying the bank the right to foreclose in the circumstances. The court did not find a promise by the bank to modify the mortgage but it did have a duty to negotiate the modification in good faith before foreclosing.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/mortgages\/\" rel=\"tag\">Mortgages<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/real-estate-transactions\/\" rel=\"tag\">Real Estate Transactions<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/statute-of-frauds\/\" rel=\"tag\">Statute of Frauds<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal District Court judge in Massachusetts has ruled in the case of\u00a0Dixon v. Wells Fargo Bank, 2011 WL 2945795 (D. Mass. 2011), that a ban cannot induce a homeowner to stop making mortgage payments as a prerequisite to negotiations to modify the mortgage and then use that failure to make the mortgage payments as a predicate for foreclosing on the property and evicting the owner. The bank&#8217;s representation that it would renegotiate following the borrower&#8217;s cessation of mortgage payments constituted a promise on which the borrower reasonably relied and that promise could be equitably enforced by denying the bank the right to foreclose in the circumstances. The court did not find a promise by the bank to modify the mortgage but it did have a duty to negotiate the modification in good faith before foreclosing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,10,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mortgages","category-real-estate-transactions","category-statute-of-frauds"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}