Connecticut court wipes out a completed foreclosure sale over timing

The problem that undid the sale came next. After the homeowner’s third appeal was dismissed as frivolous in March 2025, he asked the state Supreme Court for permission to take the case higher. That petition mattered. Under Connecticut’s rules, it kept an automatic stay in place – a freeze on any step to carry out the foreclosure judgment – until the Supreme Court acted. The court did not rule until April 30, 2025. 

The sale went ahead on April 12, 2025, with the freeze still on. The committee running the sale later asked the trial court to approve it, and in July 2025 the court did. 

Before the appellate panel, the bank did not dispute the timing but argued the error was harmless. By the time the trial court approved the sale, it said, the Supreme Court had denied the petition and the stay was gone. The panel rejected that. A foreclosure sale held while a stay is in effect is “void ab initio,” it said – void from the very beginning – and the rule blocking such sales is “mandatory.” No harmless-error analysis can revive it. 

The three judges reversed the approval and sent the case back with direction to vacate the sale. They did not disturb the underlying foreclosure judgment, which stands on remand. 

The point for lenders and servicers is narrow but sharp. An automatic appellate stay does not end the moment a lower appeal is dismissed. A timely petition to a higher court keeps it alive, sometimes for weeks. Push a sale through that window and it collapses, whatever the strength of the judgment behind it. In Connecticut the court itself is the seller and the sale committee only its agent, with no authority to sell while proceedings are frozen. Confirm every avenue of review is truly closed before the property changes hands.