Court Opinion

ID: 9852585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:33:08.045037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:30.222265
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I concur in the holding of the majority that the junior mortgagee cannot redeem from the assignee, but dissent from the holding that the junior mortgagee can foreclose against the property. I join in Justice Carter’s dissent, but add the following.
Involved is a mortgagor, an assignee of the mortgagor’s right of redemption, a senior mortgagee whose claim was foreclosed, and a junior mortgagee. The junior mortgagee was a party to the action foreclosing the senior mortgage. A total redemption period of six months rather than twelve months is involved by virtue of a clause in the mortgage under section 628.26 of the Iowa Code (1983).
When the sheriff’s sale was held under the senior mortgage foreclosure judgment, the junior mortgagee could have protected itself by bidding on the property if it believed the property had value in excess of the senior mortgage. It did not do so, and the senior mortgagee bid in the property. If the mortgagor had thereafter redeemed at any time during the six-month redemption period and if the junior mortgagee had meantime obtained judgment against the mortgagor on the mortgagor’s note, the junior mortgagee would have had a lien on the property under its judgment against the mortgagor by virtue of the statute which makes a judgment a lien against the debtor’s real property. Iowa Code § 624.23.
The assignee, however, redeemed. A judgment in favor of the junior mortgagee against the mortgagor would not be against the assignee, and would not be a lien on the assignee’s real property. The junior mortgagee therefore would have no judgment lien to enforce against the property in the assignee’s hands.
I would affirm the district court’s judgment that the junior mortgagee is entitled to judgment on the mortgagor’s note, but would otherwise reverse the judgment.
CARTER and WOLLE, JJ., join this concurrence in part and dissent in part.