The Michigan Supreme Court granted leave to hear two controversial real estate cases on Wednesday.
The first is Residential Funding Co. v. Saurman, a case in which the Court of Appeals said the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) didn’t have authority to foreclose or evict the residents whose homes are in foreclosure. (See “COA rules mortgage processor has no authority to forecloseon or evict homeowners” and “Will MSC sour on ‘Saurman’?”).
In Saurman, MERS, “a mechanism to provide for the faster and lower cost buying and selling of mortgage debt,” began non-judicial foreclosures by advertisement on several homes. The COA said it couldn’t do that because it was not the owner of the debt, someone with an interest in the debt, or a servicing agent of the mortgager.
The other case involved the property taxation of land in development, Toll Northville v. Twp of Northville. (See “Sorry, no refund”).
In Toll Northville, some home developers sought to get a refund of overpaid property taxes. The overpayment was the result of the developers being assessed based on improvements made to the land in development. The assessment was based on a statute that the Michigan Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional.
The developers were originally granted their refunds by the Michigan Tax Tribunal, but the COA reversed, finding the tribunal didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the appeals because they weren’t timely filed in the year of the assessment, even if the assessment may have been correct under the stricken law, which was in effect at that time.
Hearings for both cases have not yet been scheduled.
The Michigan Lawyer 