Opinion
20-P-803
12-10-2021
WELLS FARGO BANK N.A. v. Maryanne WEST.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0
The defendant, Maryanne West, appeals from a Superior Court judgment on the pleadings in favor of the plaintiff, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (bank), in its action to quiet title to a residential property that West had owned until the bank foreclosed upon it. The bank's action sought to establish that West's attempts to rescind the underlying 2004 loan were untimely and thus of no effect. The motion judge ruled in the bank's favor. We affirm the judgment.
Based on the bank's verified complaint and West's answer, the following material facts were undisputed. See Clarke v. Metropolitan Dist. Comm'n, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 955, 955 (1981) ("A judgment on the pleadings under Mass.R.Civ.P. 12 [c], 365 Mass. 754 [1974], is appropriate only where there are no material facts in dispute on the face of the pleadings"). No later than September 16, 2004, West executed a promissory note for $270,500, secured by a mortgage in the same amount on the property in question. More than twelve years later, on November 25, 2016, West recorded at the registry of deeds a "[n]otice of [r]escission" of the loan, dated July 28, 2010. The last payment on the loan was made in 2007, and the bank foreclosed on the property on March 1, 2018. The recorded notice of recission, however, was preventing the bank from proceeding with a closing related to the property -- apparently an attempted sale to another party.
West's answer disputed the reasons for the cessation of payments and the foreclosure, and the legal validity of the latter, but not the underlying facts alleged in the bank's verified complaint.
West's answer disputed the bank's legal position that the foreclosure otherwise gave it the power to proceed with a sale, but not the factual allegation that the recorded notice of rescission was impeding the bank's action.
The bank's motion for judgment on the pleadings argued that -- even assuming in West's favor that she was not properly notified of her rescission rights at the time she signed the 2004 note and mortgage -- the latest she could exercise a right of rescission was four years later, under the Massachusetts Consumer Credit Cost Disclosure Act (MCCCDA), G. L. c. 140D, §§ 1 - 35. Under that statute, "[a]n obligor's right of rescission shall expire four years after the date of consummation of the transaction ... notwithstanding that the information and forms required under this section or any other disclosures required under this chapter have not been delivered to the obligor," with exceptions not relevant here. G. L. c. 140D, § 10 (f ). The time for rescission under the Federal Truth in Lending Act (TILA) is shorter: three years. See 15 U.S.C. § 1635(f). Once these statutory rescission periods have run, there is no right to rescind the transaction. See Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 574 U.S. 259, 262 (2015), citing Beach v. Ocwen Fed. Bank, 523 U.S. 410, 417 (1998) (Federal law); May v. SunTrust Mtge., Inc., 467 Mass. 756, 760 (2014) (State law).
"Although a consumer credit transaction in theory could be governed by both TILA and the MCCCDA, the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System has deemed certain types of Massachusetts consumer credit transactions exempt from TILA ...; as a consequence, such transactions are governed solely by the MCCCDA." May, 467 Mass. at 759. Because West's notice of rescission was untimely under both statutes, we need not decide which statute(s) governed her transaction.
Here, under the undisputed facts, West's right to rescind expired, at the latest, four years after she executed the note and mortgage on September 16, 2004. West gave notice of rescission no earlier than July 28, 2010, nearly two years after the last possible rescission date. Accordingly, that notice was untimely and therefore of no effect. The motion judge so decided. Reviewing that decision de novo, see Commonwealth v. Fremont Inv. & Loan, 459 Mass. 209, 212 (2011), i.e., without deference to the judge's view, we conclude that her decision was correct as a matter of law.
After a judgment entered allowing the bank's motion, and West appealed, another judgment entered, embodying the judge's conclusions that the recorded notice of rescission was invalid and had no effect on the foreclosure sale. West did not appeal from that subsequent judgment, and so it is not before us. In any event, we see no error in it.
We have considered West's arguments on appeal concerning (1) the bank's asserted refusal to hold off on its foreclosure action based on West's preapproval for a reverse mortgage, (2) West's complicated dealings with an attorney who she believed had previously agreed to assist her, (3) her belief that any further action by the bank or others regarding the property should have been stayed while this appeal was pending, and other collateral issues. Although West's frustration with the process that led to the loss of her home is understandable, none of her arguments calls into question the conclusion that her notice of rescission was untimely and did not bar the bank from proceeding with the foreclosure.
Judgment docketed December 9, 2019, affirmed.