Non-debt Financing for Home Purchases

Professor Shelby Green

I will be presenting on Non-Debt Financing for Home Purchase: Risks and Promises as part of the ABA’s Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law “Professors’ Corner.”  It will take place at 12:30 PM (Eastern Time) on June 9th.  The program is free for ABA members and non-members alike, although registration is required.  Professor Shelby D. Green of Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law will moderate.  The program description reads:

A new class of financing options is emerging, including non-debt or equity investment, either facilitating the initial purchase with no borrowing or enabling access to equity from existing homeownership. The presenter will discuss whether the surface appeal of these financing inventions may camouflage risks that if not disclosed and well-managed could portend disruption in the housing markets.

Update:  The slides for the presentation can be found here.

Installment Land Contracts:  Uses, Abuses, and Legislative Proposals

Professor Durham

Professor Freyermuth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professors’ Corner

A FREE monthly webinar featuring a panel of law professors,

addressing topics of interest to practitioners of real estate and trusts/estates

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

12:30 p.m. Eastern/11:30 a.m. Central/9:30 a.m. Pacific 

Installment Land Contracts:  Uses, Abuses, and Legislative Proposals 

Speakers:

  • Professor Jim Durham, University of Dayton
  • Professor Wilson Freyermuth, University of Missouri

Moderator:

  • Professor Chris Odinet, Southern University Law Center and Visiting Professor, University of Iowa

In the wake of the mortgage crisis, several jurisdictions have seen a resurgence in the use of the installment land contract as a financing device. Use of the installment contract creates a number of risks, particularly in jurisdictions where existing precedent and/or statutory provisions do not clearly articulate the appropriate procedures for the vendor’s enforcement of contract following the vendee’s default. Some investors have sought to capitalize on this lack of clarity, effectively using installment contracts as the equivalent of “rent-to-own” contracts that provide for landlord-like default remedies while disclaiming any responsibility for the habitability of the property.

Professors Durham and Freyermuth will discuss the existing legal background governing the characterization and enforcement of installment land contracts and the wide variety of approaches taken by various states. They will also discuss the provisions and the merits of recent legislative proposals designed to regulate some of the more abusive uses of the installment land contract device.

Register for this FREE webinar program at https://ambar.org/ProfessorsCorner.

Sponsored by the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section Legal Education and Uniform Laws Group

 

Equitable Subrogation in Mortgage Refinancing

Freyermuth-Wilson1

Professor Freyermuth

I am speaking on Equitable Subrogation in Mortgage Refinancing and Land Purchase Transactions in an ABA Professor’s Corner webinar on Wednesday with Professor Wilson Freyermuth of the University of Missouri School of Law. If this sounds like an esoteric topic, it is!

Subrogation refers to the substitution of one party for another and equitable subrogation refers to the doctrine where a court may use its equitable powers to find an implied assignment of a mortgage in order to avoid the unjust enrichment of a party. Since the commencement of the foreclosure crisis, this doctrine has been put to the test. Wilson and I will take a look at some of the recent cases that do the testing. More info about the webinar is below:

Professors’ Corner

FREE monthly webinar featuring a panel of law professors, addressing topics of interest to practitioners of real estate and trusts/estates. All are welcome and encouraged to register and participate.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

12:30 p.m. Eastern/11:30 a.m. Central/9:30 a.m. Pacific

Equitable Subrogation in Mortgage Refinancing and Land Purchase Transactions

Speakers:  

David Reiss, Brooklyn Law School

Wilson Freyermuth, University of Missouri School of Law

When a lender makes a mortgage loan to refinance an existing first mortgage, the lender typically expects its refinancing loan to have first priority.  If there is an intervening lien on the mortgaged property, however, a priority dispute may result in which the intervening lienholder argues that the recording statutes give it priority over the refinancing lender’s mortgage lien.

In this situation, the principle of equitable subrogation may apply to allow the refinancing lender to be subrogated to the priority of the paid-off mortgage so as to obtain priority over the intervening lien.  The Restatement (Third) of Property: Mortgages (1997) embraced the liberal application of equitable subrogation in this context.  While many courts have embraced the Restatement approach, not all courts have embraced the Restatement approach (including a recent Delaware Supreme Court decision rejecting the application of equitable subrogation in the refinancing context).

Our speakers will discuss a series of recent decisions (all decided in the 2015 calendar year) addressing the extent to which equitable subrogation is (or should be) available in the mortgage refinancing and land purchase context.

Register for this FREE webinar at https://ambar.org/ProfessorsCorner.

Sponsored by the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section, Legal Education and Uniform Laws Group.

(Non-)Enforcement of Securitized Mortgage Loans

Professors Neil Cohen and Dale Whitman, two important scholars who know their way around the UCC and mortgage law, will take on a highly contested topic in an upcoming ABA Professors’ Corner webinar: “Ownership, Transfer, and Enforcement of Securitized Mortgage Loans.” I blogged a bit about this topic a couple of days ago, in relation to Adam Levitin’s new article. There is a lot of misinformation floating around the blogosphere relating to this topic, so I encourage readers to register.

The full information on this program is as follows:

Professors’ Corner is a FREE monthly webinar, sponsored by the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section’s Legal Education and Uniform Law Group.  On the second Wednesday of each month, a panel of law professors discusses recent cases or issues of interest to real estate practitioners and scholars.

December 2013 Professors’ Corner
“Ownership, Transfer, and Enforcement of Securitized Mortgage Loans”
Profs. Neil Cohen and Dale Whitman
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
12:30pm Eastern/11:30am Cental/9:30am Pacific
Register for this FREE program at https://ambar.org/ProfessorsCorner

Our nation’s courts have been swamped with litigation involving the foreclosure of securitized mortgage loans.  Much of this litigation involves the appropriate interaction of the Uniform Commercial Code and state foreclosure law. Because few foreclosure lawyers and judges are UCC experts, the outcomes of the reported cases have reflected a significant degree of uncertainty or confusion.

In addition, much litigation has been triggered by poor practices in the securitization of mortgage loans, such as robo-signing and the failure to transfer loans into a securitized trust within the time period required by the IRS REMIC rules.  This litigation has likewise produced conflicting case outcomes.  In particular, recent decisions have reflected some disagreement regarding whether a mortgagor — who is not a party to the Pooling and Servicing Agreement that governs the securitized trust that holds the mortgage — can successfully defend a foreclosure by challenging the validity of the assignment of the mortgage to a securitized trust.

Our speakers for the December program will bring some much-needed clarity to these issues.  Our speakers are Prof. Neil B. Cohen, the Jeffrey D. Forchelli Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, and Prof. Dale A. Whitman, the James E Campbell Missouri Endowed Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law.  Prof. Cohen is the Research Director of the Permanent Editorial Board for the Uniform Commercial Code, and a principal contributor to the November 2011 PEB Report, “Application of the Uniform Commercial Code to Selected Issues Relating to Mortgage Notes.” Prof. Whitman is the co-Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of Property — Mortgages, and the co-author of the pre-eminent treatise on Real Estate Finance Law.

Please join us for this program.  You may register at https://ambar.org/ProfessorsCorner.