Nationstar loses 17-year foreclosure after mailing notice to wrong address
The appellate court treated the borrowers’ motion as a request to vacate for lack of jurisdiction under CPLR 5015(a)(4). The logic is simple: improper service of a motion strips the court of authority to rule on it, and any order that follows is a nullity. Nationstar countered on appeal that the former attorney might have received the papers regardless. The court said that argument came too late – raised for the first time on appeal – and was meritless in any event.
Then there was the 90-day notice. Under RPAPL 1304, a servicer must send each borrower a pre-foreclosure notice at least 90 days before filing suit, by both registered or certified mail and first-class mail. When there are two borrowers on a loan, the statute requires a separate mailing to each. The borrowers pulled documents from Nationstar’s own prior filings showing the servicer had addressed one notice jointly to both of them in a single envelope. One envelope, two borrowers. That does not work under New York law.
Nationstar raised no factual dispute on either issue.
For servicers working New York foreclosure pipelines, the takeaway is concrete: RPAPL 1304’s separate-notice rule and basic service requirements are strict-compliance obligations, and getting either one wrong can crater a case that has been on the books for nearly two decades.
