DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

MARCIA SUPRIA,

Appellant,

v.

GOSHEN MORTGAGE, LLC, in substitution for the original Plaintiff

CHRISTIANA TRUST, A DIVISION OF WILMINGTON SAVINGS FUND 

SOCIETY FSB, AS TRUSTEE FOR STANWICH MORTGAGE LOAN 

TRUST, SERIES 2012-13,

Appellee.

No. 4D16-4356

[December 6, 2017]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, 

Broward County; Kathleen D. Ireland, Judge; L.T. Case No. 13-027100 

CACE (11).

Catherine A. Riggins, Miami, for appellant.

Thomas Wade Young and Joseph B. Towne of Lender Legal Services, 

LLC, Orlando, for appellee.

GROSS, J.

In this mortgage foreclosure case, the underlying mortgage was passed 

around like the flu, giving rise to a complexity of ownership that frustrated 

the appellee’s attempts to demonstrate standing at trial. To the answer 

brief, the appellee attached a chart of the ownership lineage of the 

mortgage and note, with different types of arrows pointing in all directions, 

a valiant effort which demonstrated that the transfer history here defies 

pictorial representation.

On the original note, Centerpointe Financial, Inc. is the lender. There 

is no blank indorsement from Centerpointe. There was an allonge

purporting to effect a transfer, but the allonge was lost and not produced 

at trial. Appellee conceded at trial that it was not a holder of the note, but 

contended that it qualified as a nonholder in possession with the rights of 

a holder.
2

“A nonholder in possession may prove its right to enforce the note 

through: (1) evidence of an effective transfer; (2) proof of purchase of the 

debt; or (3) evidence of a valid assignment.” Bank of N.Y. Mellon Tr. Co., 

N.A. v. Conley, 188 So. 3d 884, 885 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016). “A nonholder in 

possession must account for its possession of the instrument by proving 

the transaction (or series of transactions) through which it acquired the 

note.” Id. (citing Murray v. HSBC Bank USA, 157 So. 3d 355, 358 (Fla. 4th 

DCA 2015)).

Therefore, “[t]o prove standing as a nonholder in possession with the 

rights of a holder, the plaintiff must prove the chain of transfers starting 

with the first holder of the note.” PennyMac Corp. v. Frost, 214 So. 3d 686, 

689 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017) (citing Murray, 157 So. 3d at 357-58). “Where 

the plaintiff ‘cannot prove that [a transferor] had any right to enforce the 

note, it cannot derive any right from [the transferor] and is not a nonholder 

in possession of the instrument with the rights of a holder to enforce.’” 

PennyMac, 214 So. 3d at 689 (quoting Murray, 157 So. 3d at 359).

Here, the first assignment of the note was invalid, because nothing in 

evidence demonstrated that the assignor had the authority to transfer or 

assign an interest in the note. Similarly, a second assignment was also 

invalid because nothing demonstrated that the assignor had an interest in 

the note that it could transfer. Among other problems, the third and fifth 

assignments transferred the mortgage, but not the note. The fourth 

assignment was infirm because of the problems with the earlier 

assignments.

One legal problem created by the third and fifth assignment is that a 

“mortgage follows the assignment of the promissory note, but an 

assignment of the mortgage without an assignment of the debt creates no 

right in the assignee.” Tilus v. Michai LLC, 161 So. 3d 1284, 1286 (Fla. 4th 

DCA 2015). “‘[A] mortgage is but an incident to the debt, the payment of 

which it secures, and its ownership follows the assignment of the debt’—

not the other way around.” Peters v. Bank of N.Y. Mellon, 227 So. 3d 175, 

180 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017) (quoting Johns v. Gillian, 184 So. 140, 143 (Fla. 

1938)). The oblique reference in the assignments of mortgage to “moneys 

now owing” was not sufficient to transfer an interest in the note. See Jelic 

v. BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, 178 So. 3d 523, 525 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015).

Because appellee failed to establish its standing to foreclose, we reverse 

the final judgment and remand for the entry of judgment for the appellant.

MAY and KLINGENSMITH, JJ., concur.
3

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.