August 3, 2012

We were just advised moments ago that a Hawai’i Circuit Court Judge has denied Deutsche Bank’s Motion for Summary Judgment, expressly finding that there are genuine issues of material fact as to whether the Note and Mortgage were transferred to Deutsche Bank (the claimed “trustee” of a securitized mortgage loan trust) before the original lender, Home 123 Corporation, filed for Bankruptcy, and that the record did not reflect that the assignment was done with the approval of the bankruptcy court. The homeowners are represented by Jeff Barnes, Esq. and local Hawai’i counsel Ronald Grant, Esq. Mr. Barnes prepared the briefs and personally argued the matter in Honolulu last November.

This case (Deutsche Bank v. McKiernan, Case No. 09-1-000910, Hawai’i First Circuit, 21st Division) has many similarities, factually, to the Williams case from the Hawai’i Federal Court where the court permitted the homeowner to challenge Deutsche Bank’s compliance with the PSA in view of a purported assignment which was executed after the same original lender filed for bankruptcy, rejecting Deutsche Bank’s argument that the borrower did not have standing to lodge such an attack.

These two decisions thus now support, in Hawai’i, (a) a homeowner’s challenge to a foreclosure based on defective assignments, and (b) that thse defects give rise to genuine issues of material fact which preclude summary judgment. Today’s earlier post as to the Naranjo decision further supports such a borrower challenge as well.

Jeff Barnes, Esq., www.ForeclosureDefenseNationwide.com