Federal National Mortgage Ass'n v. Nunez, 460 Mass. 511 (2011)

Citation: Federal National Mortgage Ass'n v. Nunez, 460 Mass. 511 (2011)
Parent Document: Federal National Mortgage Ass'n v. Nunez, 460 Mass. 511 (2011)
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts (state)
Effective Date: 2011-09-06
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/6580334/federal-national-mortgage-assn-v-nunez/ ↗

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A “[f]oreclosing owner” under G. L. c. 186A, § 1, is defined narrowly: it does not include individuals, and instead is limited to Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and other entities that either held the mortgage prior to foreclosure or are members of the mortgage industry and acquired the property after foreclosure. By definition, a “foreclosing owner” does not own a home to live in it; it owns a home as an asset to be sold, and perhaps rented until it can be sold. Thus, the practical consequence of c. 186A to a foreclosing owner is not the denial of an opportunity to reside in property it owns, but the reduction, if any, in the fair market value of the property arising from the limitation on eviction. See Selling Tenanted Properties, New York Times, April 13, 1997. Because the foreclosing owner may evict without cause once a purchase and sale agreement is executed for the sale of the housing unit to a bona fide third party, see G. L. c. 186A, § 2, the statute’s impact on fair market value will be modest because the only practical consequence of the statute on the new buyer is the uncertainty whether the seller will succeed in evicting the tenant before the scheduled closing, for which the buyer may demand a discount in the sales price.13 We conclude that a modest reduction in the value of a real estate asset arising from the limitation on Fannie Mae’s ability to evict tenants is not the sort of burden that is so unfair as to render c. 186A retroactive in effect. Rather, like a *524new property tax, zoning regulation, or other “uncontroversially prospective statutes,” c. 186A, at worst, simply “may upset the reasonable expectations that prompted those affected to acquire property.” See Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., supra at 269 n.24.

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