Yesterday Governor Scott Walker signed into law SB 241 which permits non-judicial foreclosures for mortgages and assessment liens on timeshare estates and licenses. The new law took effect upon being signed by Governor Scott Walker.
Whittle Development, Inc. v. Branch Banking & Trust Co.
In recent months, U.S. bankruptcy filings – such as Omega Navigation (filed July 8 in Houston) and Marco Polo Seatrade (filed July 29 in New York) – have caught the attention of the worldwide shipping community. It is no surprise that some shipping companies have sought bankruptcy protection resulting from financial distress. Rather, the cause for surprise is that non-U.S. shipping companies have sought protection in U.S. bankruptcy courts. High-profile secured creditors in these cases have contested the exercise of the jurisdiction of U.S.
Dissatisfied with the ongoing multistate and federal efforts to reach a settlement agreement with major U.S. banks over unlawful foreclosure practices, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley indicated that her office was independently preparing to file several lawsuits. A number of U.S. states, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, have accused the five largest mortgage servicers, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Ally Financial and Wells Fargo & Co., of failing to follow proper foreclosure procedures.
In the recent case of Whittle Development, Inc. v. Branch Banking & Trust Co. (In re Whittle Development, Inc.), No. 10-37084, 2011 WL 3268398 (N.D. Tex. July 27, 2011), a bankruptcy court was asked whether a preference action could be sustained against a creditor who purchased real property in a properly conducted state law foreclosure sale. Recognizing a split of authority and some contrary principles enunciated by the Supreme Court in its prior decision, BFP v. Resolution Trust Corp., 511 U.S. 531 (1994), the bankruptcy court found that a preference claim could be asserted.
FILING CHAPTER 13
Last month, Jeoffrey Burtch (the "Trustee"), as Chapter 7 Trustee for the Opus South Bankruptcy, began filing preference complaints seeking to recover what the Trustee alleges are avoidable transfers under the Bankruptcy Code. For those unfamiliar with the Opus South bankruptcy, the company filed petitions for bankruptcy in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court on April 22, 2009. The Opus South bankruptcy began as a chapter 11 reorganization. However, on August 27, 2010, the Bankruptcy Court entered an order converting the case to a chapter 7 liquidation. The Trustee w
If there was such a contest, the 232-unit Spa at Sunset Isles would be in the running for "worst case scenario" condo-conversion. Here is a summary of the development's situation as it existed in late 2010:
The scenario has become all too familiar in recent years: a borrower defaults on a loan and, when the lender pursues the loan collateral through foreclosure or other proceedings, the borrower files for bankruptcy protection. More often than not, when the lender appears in bankruptcy court to pursue its interest in the collateral, the borrower counterattacks with a host of state law lender liability claims.
The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California recently held that the filing of a bankruptcy petition by a borrower can void a trustee sale even where the petition is filed after the trustee sale, so long as the borrower files the petition before the execution of the trustee's deed upon sale. In re: Gonzales 2011 WL3328508 (Bkrtcy. C.D.Cal. August 1, 2011).