Bare denials couldn't send this Nassau County foreclosure to trial
A New York appeals court kept a Glen Cove foreclosure on track on August 19, 2026, after the lender proved notice and note possession.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company brought the case in March 2023, moving to foreclose on a home in Glen Cove. Two of the homeowners contested it. Once the pleadings closed, the lender asked the trial court to rule in its favor without a trial and to appoint a referee to tally the debt.
Supreme Court in Nassau County agreed on August 26, 2024, granting summary judgment - a ruling without a full trial - and naming a referee to compute what was owed. The homeowners appealed to the Appellate Division, Second Department.
Two arguments drove the appeal. The first was notice. New York requires a lender to send a borrower a pre-foreclosure notice, called an RPAPL 1304 notice, before filing. Sending it is a precondition, and the lender must prove it did. Proof can take a few forms: return receipts, evidence of a standard office routine for addressing and mailing the notices, or a sworn statement from someone with direct knowledge that the mailing went out.
The lender took the last route. It submitted an affidavit from an authorized representative of its loan servicer, who also acted as its attorney-in-fact, with attached business records. The court found that enough to show compliance on its face. The homeowners offered nothing to send the question to trial.
The second argument was standing - the lender's right to foreclose, which depends on holding the note. The lender showed it possessed the note before suing by attaching a copy, endorsed in blank, to the summons and complaint at the outset. Again, the homeowners raised no genuine dispute. Their last argument, the court said, had no merit.
The panel affirmed the trial court's order and added costs against the homeowners.
For lenders and servicers, the decision follows a settled path through summary judgment. A servicer representative's affidavit describing the mailing, backed by business records, together with a note endorsed in blank and attached at filing, can satisfy both the notice and standing requirements at the prima facie stage - the point where the lender has shown enough to shift the burden to the borrower. Bare denials from a borrower will not create a triable dispute.
The case now returns to the referee to finish the accounting before any judgment of foreclosure and sale.
