{"id":102,"date":"2023-04-11T10:17:50","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T14:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/?p=102"},"modified":"2023-04-11T10:17:50","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T14:17:50","slug":"washington-court-of-appeals-confirms-note-possession-and-allonge-affixation-requirements-for-standing-to-enforce-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/2023\/04\/11\/washington-court-of-appeals-confirms-note-possession-and-allonge-affixation-requirements-for-standing-to-enforce-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Court Of Appeals Confirms Note Possession And Allonge Affixation Requirements For Standing To Enforce Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On March 13, 2023, the Washington Court of Appeals (\u201cCourt\u201d) found, among other things, that \u201cthere is no authority\u201d to support \u201cthat a holder of a note must possess the note on (or affix supporting documents to the note by) the date of the filing of a complaint for judicial foreclosure in order to enforce the note.\u201d <em>21<sup>st<\/sup> Mortgage Corp. v. Nicholls et al<\/em>., No. 83347-2-I, 2023 WL 2473116, \u00b6\u00b6 1, 48 (Ct. App. Wa. Mar. 13, 2023). More details on this important ruling are below.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>21<sup>st<\/sup> Mortgage Corporation<\/em>, a borrower defaulted on a loan and the lender accordingly filed a foreclosure complaint against the borrower and the owner of the secured property. The owner argued that the lender lacked standing to enforce the note because the lender allegedly didn\u2019t possess the note, and certain allonges weren\u2019t affixed to the note, at the time the lender filed its foreclosure lawsuit. These issues were ultimately tried to a jury following a lengthy procedural history, the jury ruled in favor of the owner, and the trial court denied the lender\u2019s motion to set aside the jury\u2019s verdict.<\/p>\n<p>The Court reversed the trial court\u2019s ruling on appeal. In short, the Court rejected the owner\u2019s various standing theories and found that Washington law did not support them. Among other rulings, the Court found that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There was no authority to support that \u201ca fact finder must determine when allonges were possessed or affixed to a note to establish standing to enforce the note.\u201d <em>Id<\/em>. at \u00b6 40.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAffixation is not required for standing,\u201d and a holder therefore does not need to show that allonges are \u201cpermanently\u201d affixed to a note at the time the note was indorsed in blank. <em>Id<\/em>. at \u00b6 41.<\/li>\n<li>\u201c[T]here is no authority in support\u201d of the theory that a holder \u201cmust possess the note and allonges . . . at the time\u201d of filing a lawsuit to establish standing. <em>Id<\/em>. at \u00b6 48. Instead, the operative time for a holder to prove its possession is \u201cthe date the court considers the merits of the proposed decree of foreclosure.\u201d <em>Id<\/em>. at \u00b6 46.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On March 13, 2023, the Washington Court of Appeals (\u201cCourt\u201d) found, among other things, that \u201cthere is no authority\u201d to support \u201cthat a holder of a note must possess the note on (or affix supporting documents to the note by) the date of the filing of a complaint for judicial foreclosure in order to enforce &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/2023\/04\/11\/washington-court-of-appeals-confirms-note-possession-and-allonge-affixation-requirements-for-standing-to-enforce-notes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Washington Court Of Appeals Confirms Note Possession And Allonge Affixation Requirements For Standing To Enforce Notes&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[8],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"authors":[{"term_id":8,"user_id":158,"is_guest":0,"slug":"ehart","display_name":"Elinor H. Murarova","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/58\/2022\/11\/murarovaelinor-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/lenderliabilityandloanenforcement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}