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Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. Protects Mortgage for Lender Defeating Fraud Allegations

In Salm v. Champion Mortgage, et al., Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. conceived, negotiated, and orchestrated a pre-trial settlement, in which Champion Mortgage’s reverse mortgage up to the maximum principal amount of $825,000 was declared a valid interest secured by a property in Staten Island, New York, despite the borrower alleging that he was fraudulently tricked into executing the reverse mortgage.    

The elderly and ill borrower commenced this action seeking to invalidate the mortgage as against the premises, claiming that crooked mortgage brokers fraudulently induced him into executing a reverse mortgage without his knowledge.     

In the face of this seemingly fraudulent transaction, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. prevailed in successfully settling this Article 15 action to quiet title with a Mutual Release and Settlement Agreement, avoiding protracted litigation and an uphill trial.    

After complex discovery and deliberate lines of questioning in depositions, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. was able to prove that the elderly borrower failed to read the reverse mortgage documents before executing them, thereby arming Champion Mortgage with the defenses needed to force the borrower into a settlement of this action.

Per the Second Department, a party is under an obligation to read a document before he signs it, and a party cannot generally avoid the effect of a document on the ground that he did not read it or know its contents. Using this Appellate Division law, a settlement was entered into by which the borrower stipulated to the validity of the reverse mortgage as secured by the property and further paid off the reverse mortgage in full with only some discounted interest charges.                     

Jackie Halpern Weinstein and Colin E. Kaufman of the Title Litigation Group at Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. won this case for the insured.      

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