Opinion ID: 2827473
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The loan history

Text: Duenas-Rendon and Barajas made their monthly mortgage payments mostly on schedule for the first five years.2 The couple separated sometime in 2006 or 2007, and Duenas-Rendon continued to occupy the home and make the payments. She failed to make payments in July, November, and December 2008, apparently in part because she wrote checks on a joint account that had been closed following her separation from her husband.3 Wells Fargo sent an acceleration demand letter in September 2008 and another one in October 2008, but both letters were returned as undeliverable. Bank employees tried to reach the couple by telephone on several occasions but without success. In November 2008 Duenas-Rendon notified Wells Fargo that she had a new address in Oregon, and the bank sent an acceleration letter to the new address. The letter stated that the loan was in default and gave the required notice that Wells Fargo intended to invoke its right to accelerate the loan and initiate a foreclosure action if the default was not cured within 30 days. When the December deadline came and went, Wells Fargo referred the loan to the trustee for foreclosure. Duenas-Rendon testified in her deposition that she did not receive the November 2008 letter giving her 30 days’ notice of acceleration. She does concede, however, that she provided Wells Fargo with the Oregon address, that she received something from Wells Fargo in the mail at that address, and that she remained in Oregon 2 Their payment in October 2003 included not just the amount due but also an $8,000 prepayment that reduced the principal but, under the terms of the promissory note, did not otherwise effect any “changes in the due date or in the amount of [the] monthly payments.” 3 Wells Fargo’s records reflected that two payments were processed on December 16, 2008, but reversed a week later for insufficient funds. -4- 7034 until late November 2008. In December she gave Wells Fargo another new address, that of her sister’s home in Anchorage. On January 14, 2009, the trustee recorded a Notice of Default Under Deed of Trust announcing its intention to sell Duenas-Rendon’s home at public auction on April 17. Duenas-Rendon was working in Dutch Harbor at the time and was largely out of touch. In the meantime, however, she arranged for her sister to make four monthly mortgage payments for her: on February 18, March 3, March 11, and April 3, 2009.4 Wells Fargo processed all four payments but, due to the pending foreclosure, held the funds “in suspense” rather than applying them toward the loan. The superior court concluded that these four payments were all returned to the borrowers within weeks after they were made, though Duenas-Rendon disputed this. The auction occurred as scheduled in April 2009, and the home was sold for the amount of the loan principal, $47,500. Duenas-Rendon received a check for $1,237.80 from the proceeds. She does not dispute that by the end of 2008, when Wells Fargo accelerated the note, she was three months behind in her payments. Nor does she dispute that the four payments made in 2009 were insufficient to cure the default, even if Wells Fargo had elected to apply them to the loan rather than holding them.