Foreclosure Being Appealed

[Chris Seveney]

Has anyone ever had a borrower fight a foreclosure and file an appeal with the state district court of appeals.

Currently have a case which is going down that path, curious if anyone has ever been down this road before and could answer how long it took, and how it went.

[Don Konipol]

@Chris Seveney

Hi Chris

Back when I lent on non o/o residential, I lent $325,000 secured by a house valued at $500,000. Right after closing the “investor’ got rid of the tenant, and moved in himself. He stopped paying and immediately offered to pay the note off.....at a substantial discount. We foreclosed in county court and won; he appealed. The appeal went to state appeal court, the original verdict was upheld....

And he appealed. The case then went to Texas Supreme Court, where the original verdict and appeals court decision was upheld. At this point we were able to get him out by filing a forcible detainer, but only after the police had arrested him for drug dealing.

A couple of interesting things about this deal

1- the borrower never showed up to court with an attorney, he represented himself, although he was obviously receiving advice from at attorney

2 - the borrower always maintained a friendly attitude, as if it was all a misunderstanding and could be rectified “with a little give and take”

3- at each court level the borrower attempted to spin a yarn trying to convince the judge that he was just a homeowner down on his luck trying to save his home. His criminal record, his signature on the non homestead affidavit, his signature on the investment property affidavit, didn’t deter him from lying in the least.

4- for the first appeal he was able to post a “pauper’s bond”, meaning no bond at all. For the appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, the Court accepted the pledge of land that was in someone else’s name, but that’s a whole other story.

5- this was the deal that convinced me to lend secured by commercial property only.