Ohio court rejects homeowner’s lost-note fraud claim against Wells Fargo
From there, the case ran a familiar course. The homeowner moved to dismiss; the court said no. Wells Fargo moved for summary judgment in January 2018. She did not respond. In July 2018, the court granted the motion and entered the foreclosure decree – and she did not appeal it.
That silence mattered later. She returned to court repeatedly. Her strongest attempt came in December 2025, when she asked the court to throw out the judgment as “void,” arguing the bank had won through “a pattern of fraud upon [the trial court].”
Her case hung on a timeline. Since 2017, Wells Fargo told the court it held the original note. But in a September 2024 “Form of Lost Note Affidavit” filed in her bankruptcy, a senior officer of the bank’s assignee swore the “original note has either been lost, misfiled, misplaced or destroyed.” To her, that gap proved the earlier statements false.
Both courts disagreed. The trial judge called the motion her “latest delay tactic” and “a repeat of prior claims.” The appeals court affirmed, and its reasoning matters.
First, the court said the statements she attacked were not made by an officer of the court. Three appeared in pleadings counsel filed for the client; the fourth came from a corporate representative of the assignee. That kept the claim out of the narrow “fraud upon the court” exception and inside ordinary fraud, which carries a one-year deadline she had missed.
