Summary
holding that appellant-mortgagors lacked standing to object to the referee's variance from the "time is of the essence" term of sale
Summary of this case from Cerrato v. Bac Home Loans Servicing (In re Cerrato)Opinion
01-06200
Argued April 8, 2002
May 20, 2002.
In an action to foreclose a mortgage, the defendants George Bassi and Elizabeth Bassi appeal from an order of the Supreme Court, Westchester County (Nastasi, J.), entered May 21, 2001, which granted the plaintiff's motion for a writ of assistance, and denied their cross motion, inter alia, to vacate a referee's deed, set aside a foreclosure sale, and order a new foreclosure sale subject to their right of redemption.
D'Agostino Law Office, P.C., Pleasantville, N.Y. (Charles A. D'Agostino and Joseph Rizzo of counsel), for appellants.
Andrew Morganstern, Mineola, N.Y., for respondent.
Before: DAVID S. RITTER, J.P., SANDRA J. FEUERSTEIN, GLORIA GOLDSTEIN, BARRY A. COZIER, JJ.
ORDERED that the order is affirmed, with costs.
A court possesses broad equitable powers to set aside a foreclosure sale where fraud, collusion, mistake, or misconduct casts doubt on the fairness of the sale (see Provident Sav. Bank v. Bordes, 244 A.D.2d 470). No such misconduct occurred here. Moreover, the appellant mortgagors lack standing to object to the referee's variance from the time-of-the-essence term of sale with the successful bidder (see Scheckter v. Emigrant Sav. Bank, 237 A.D.2d 273). In any event, the appellants' facially improper, redundant, second bankruptcy filing was directly responsible for the delay in the closing of the foreclosure sale until after the law date specified in the terms of sale, and thus, they may not be heard to complain of this delay (see SRF Bldrs. Capital Corp. v. Ventura, 224 A.D.2d 678).
The appellants' remaining contentions are without merit.
RITTER, J.P., FEUERSTEIN, GOLDSTEIN and COZIER, JJ., concur.