Hawaii Supreme Court says note records fail to prove foreclosure standing
To win summary judgment – a ruling without a full trial – UMB had to show Wells Fargo held the note when the suit started. It offered two employee declarations and a spreadsheet tracking the note’s whereabouts. A Wells Fargo vice president certified that he reviewed the original note on October 22, 2013. A business consultant declared that the bank’s records showed continuous possession through the 2015 filing.
The trial court found that sufficient. The parties then signed a stipulation stating Wells Fargo held the note before the case began and that UMB was the current holder. A foreclosure decree followed in March 2024, and the Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed.
The justices rejected the borrowers’ claim that the declarations and spreadsheet were inadmissible; the records were properly before the court. The problem was what they showed. The vice president’s certification placed the note in Wells Fargo’s hands in October 2013 – more than a year before the January 2015 filing. The spreadsheet meant to bridge that gap was full of undefined codes. One recurring entry, “Location Move,” was never explained, and read in the borrowers’ favor, it could mean the note went to a third party in November 2013.
An earlier ruling had accepted possession shown about six weeks before filing. A year-plus gap backed by murky records did not clear the bar. The stipulation didn’t rescue UMB either – it never fixed a possession date and came after the flawed ruling.
The court vacated the appeals court ruling upholding the foreclosure and returned the case to the trial court. The borrowers’ underlying default was never decided.
