A Sound Beach, New York, couple fighting foreclosure for nearly 10 years “can finally close that chapter of their lives” now that their lender has missed court deadlines to continue the legal battle, the couple’s lawyer said Tuesday.
Fred and Theresa Tovar’s mortgage lender — originally Beneficial Homeowner Service Corp., and later U.S. Bank Trust N.A. — had until Friday to file a motion seeking permission to take the case to the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.
No motion has been filed, a court spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The lender could still seek an extension of time, or it could try to re-argue the case before the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court, which last month upheld a lower-court ruling in favor of the homeowners.
However, the Tovars’ attorney, Ivan Young of Bohemia, said he believed such an effort would be “futile.”
U.S. Bancorp, the lender’s parent company, referred questions to the mortgage servicer, Caliber Home Loans Inc. A spokesman for Caliber declined to comment.
The court fight turned on whether the lender missed the six-year statute of limitations to file a foreclosure lawsuit.
The lender sued to foreclose in 2007, and the case was dismissed in 2012. The new lawsuit was not filed until 2014.
By then, the six-year deadline had passed, a state Supreme Court justice in Suffolk County ruled in 2014.
That decision was upheld unanimously by a four-judge panel of the Appellate Division last month.
