A MISS IS AS GOOD AS A MILE: ...

...  WHEN A FALSE DESCRIPTION IS THE TRUMP, AND BAD FAITH IS NOT EVEN IN THE PICTURE.

A couple that filed for bankruptcy owned two properties.  Their mortgage on a home equity loan gave the street address for one property as the collateral, but the "metes and bounds" legal description for their other property as the collateral.  Not only did the two properties have different legal descriptions, of course, but they are miles apart.

The mortgage was recorded but apparently no-one caught the false identification of the collateral for a loan of several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The lender contended in Bankruptcy Court that the property description in the mortgage should be "reformed" to reflect what it said was the true collateral for the home equity loan.  Of course, at that point, it seems like the lender could have picked either property to be the collateral, if it had wanted, since both properties were partially described as collateral in the mortgage.

The Bankruptcy Court applied precedent and held that this mortgage could not be reformed and, rather, that this mortgage is a part of the bankruptcy estate.  In re Benton (Eastern Bank v. Benton), Case No. 16–11385–JNF, Adv. P. No. 16–11012017, 2017 WL 53581, at *9-*10 (Bankr. D. Mass. January 4, 2017).

When a lender is writing up a mortgage, a miss is as good as a mile sometimes.

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