Antideficiency Protections Under 580b, 580d, and 580e Amended and Clarified

  Antideficiency protections have been clarified by July 2013 legislation amending Code of Civil Procedure sections 580b and 580d. SB 426 amends those sections and clearly provides that the prohibitions contained in sections 580b and 580d include collecting or even owing a deficiency. The amendment further clarifies that the prohibition extends only to the borrower and the borrower’s non-encumbered assets — not to 1) guarantors, pledgors, or other sureties; or, 2) that might be satisfied from other collateral pledged to secure the obligation. Continue reading

Anti-deficiency Statutes Summarized

  The increase in foreclosure and short sales in recent years has sparked some new legislation which expands California’s anti-deficiency laws. California’s present and impending anti-deficiency statutes, all contained in the Code of Civil Procedure, are summarized below. Continue reading

Immediate Assignee of Junior Single Lender Piggyback Loan Not Subject to Section 580d

   Sold-out, nonpurchase money junior lienholders are generally able to sue the borrower on their note once their security has been rendered valueless by a senior lienholder’s nonjudicial foreclosure sale. A judicially created exception to this rule is when the same lender is both the senior lienholder and the junior lienholder. In that circumstance, it has generally been held that Code of Civil Procedure section 580d precludes a deficiency judgment and, therefore, the lender cannot sue the borrower on the junior note. Moreover, a single lender cannot avoid the application of section 580d by assigning the junior loan to a different entity after the trustee’s sale on the senior lien.

   But, what about the circumstance when a single lender contemporaneously makes two nonpurchase money loans secured by two deeds of trust referencing a single real property and soon thereafter assigns the junior loan to a different entity, can the assignee of the junior loan, who is subsequently sold-out by the senior lienholder’s nonjudicial foreclosure sale, pursue the borrower for a money judgment in the amount of the debt owed? Continue reading