Link: Bauer v. RoundPOINT MORTGAGE SERVICING CORPORATION (N.D.Ill Oct. 29 2018).
In seeking to foreclose on Plaintiff’s home, the mortgagee violated the single refiling rule in Illinois that says you can’t re-file the same lawsuit twice. As a result, the mortgage loan became unenforceable as a matter of law. (A recent Illinois Supreme Court Decision, First Midwest v. Cobo, also found this would apply to an action on the promissory note).
The mortgage companies continued to send statements, some demanding payments. Plaintiff, represented by Rusty Payton and Marc Dann of DannLaw, filed suit to quiet title and actions under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Truth in Lending Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, and the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act against the mortgage servicer (Roundpoint), the investor, and the foreclosure mill law firm Wirbicki Law Group, LLC.
Judge Virginia M. Kendall found that the debt was still “valid” even though it was legally unenforceable—meaning that many of the claims do not survive.
Although the single refiling rule prevents the defendants from pursuing another foreclosure action, extinguishing their legal remedy, the rule does not extinguish the right to the underlying debt—that remains. See Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson, 137 S. Ct. 1407, 1411-12 (2017); Pantoja v. Portfolio Recovery Assocs., LLC, 852 F.3d 679, 684 (7th Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 736 (2018)(explaining that Illinois treats a “debt as a debt” because “[t]he creditor retains the legal right to appeal to the debtor to honor the debt out of a sense of moral obligation even if the legal obligation can no longer be enforced in court”); Owens v. LVNV Funding, LLC, 832 F.3d 726, 731 (7th Cir. 2016) (citing Fleming v. Yeazel,40 N.E.2d 507, 508 (1942) (“[T]he statute of limitations controls the remedy for recovery of the debt, but the debt remains the same as before, excepting that the remedy for enforcement is gone.”)).
Indeed, a creditor retains some right to payment, even if its remedy is no longer a legal one but a moral one. See Buchanan v. Northland Grp., Inc., 776 F.3d 393, 396-97 (6th Cir. 2015) (recognizing that a time-barred “debt remains a debt even after the statute of limitations has run on enforcing” and “[t]here thus is nothing wrong with informing debtors that a debt remains unpaid” and “to let the debtor know what the debt is and to ask her to pay it”); HBLC, Inc. v. Egan, 2016 IL App (1st) 143922 (2016) (citing Huertas v. Galaxy Asset Management, 641 F.3d 28, 32-33 (3d Cir.2011) (noting that “the FDCPA permits a debt collector to seek voluntary repayment of the time-barred debt so long as the debt collector does not initiate or threaten legal action in connection with its debt collection efforts”).
Moreover, a debt once-unenforceable can become enforceable again under certain circumstances.
However, the Court allowed one claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and two claims under the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act concerning Roundpoint’s threats to foreclose or legally enforce the mortgage debt.