Bank of America stopped filing foreclosure default notices in Salt Lake County earlier this month, but its attorney argued in court Thursday that it still has the legal right to do so.
The seeming contradiction wasn’t explained by the bank, though the halt in filing of notices of default in county property records apparently comes ahead of a pending agreement with the Utah Attorney General’s Office to end the practice state attorneys consider illegal.
Gary Ott, the Salt Lake County recorder whose office keeps official property records, confirmed Thursday that ReconTrust, the foreclosure arm of Bank of America, has not filed a default notice since earlier this month. That appears to mean the banking giant stopped the procedure after a letter from the A.G.’s Office saying that ReconTrust does not qualify to carry out foreclosures under Utah law.
North Carolina-based Bank of America did not return several emails seeking an explanation. Its attorney, William Boland, also declined to comment after a Thursday court hearing in Salt Lake City.
But in the hearing in federal court Boland said that a proposed class action lawsuit against ReconTrust and Bank of America should be dismissed because federal bank laws preempts a Utah law that says only Utah attorneys and title companies can carry out foreclosure filings and sales.
"Those laws allow ReconTrust to exercise the powers of foreclosure," he told U.S. District Judge Dee Benson.
Salt Lake City attorney Craig Smay, who filed the lawsuit, tried to counter Boland’s argument that because ReconTrust is competing with title companies for business federal law allows it to carry out foreclosures just like the title companies do.
Responding to a series of questions by Benson, Smay said ReconTrust is not a competitor to Utah title companies.
By Tom Harvey
The Salt Lake Tribune
No comments:
Post a Comment