Truist fends off borrower’s push to kill a Florida mortgage lien
The borrower took out a $170,000 mortgage with SunTrust in April 2005, secured by his Port Charlotte, Florida residence, maturing May 2, 2025. After a Chapter 7 discharge in April 2011, he stopped making payments. SunTrust filed foreclosure in April 2012.
Within months, SunTrust reversed course. It charged off the account in September 2012, then dismissed the foreclosure without prejudice and discharged a lis pendens at year’s end. What it did not do was release the mortgage lien.
The borrower turned to the 2014 Consent Judgment which resolved consumer-protection violations tied to SunTrust’s servicing practices. That judgment required a servicer that “makes a determination not to pursue foreclosure” to notify the borrower and release the lien. Representing himself, he argued the bank’s actions were exactly that.
The court was unconvinced – on three grounds.
First, borrowers have no private right to enforce the consent judgment. Enforcement authority belongs to a court-appointed monitor, a government monitoring committee, the United States, and participating states. A different section of the same judgment expressly named borrowers as beneficiaries for another provision – making their absence from the lien-release section telling.
