JPMorgan Chase loses Bronx Mortgage over expired foreclosure clock
That action was eventually dismissed in 2019, with leave to recommence. JPMorgan refiled the same year.
The timing proved fatal. The court found that while the 2008 action was void, the lender’s decision to accelerate the debt was not. Acceleration is a contractual election – the lender invokes a clause demanding the full balance – and voiding the lawsuit did not undo that election. Citing the Second Department’s 2024 ruling, the panel held the acceleration stood.
The six-year statute of limitations on the debt started running from the 2008 acceleration. By the time JPMorgan filed again in 2019, more than a decade had passed. The clock had expired.
JPMorgan tried another route, arguing it should benefit from New York’s savings provisions under CPLR 205(a) and 205-a, which can extend filing deadlines after a prior dismissal. The court shut that down too. The 2019 order dismissing the original action found that the lender had “failed to obtain jurisdiction over those in title” – language the appellate panel read as a personal jurisdiction failure, not a subject matter jurisdiction issue. A dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction disqualifies a plaintiff from using the savings provisions.
The court also rejected JPMorgan’s argument that the debt was never validly accelerated. Because the 2019 dismissal order made no express finding on that point, JPMorgan was estopped from raising it – the bank could not relitigate what the earlier court never decided.
