KCRA Interviews Stephen Foondos:

Attorney: Court ruling could help families in foreclosure

Supreme Court rules against banks in wrongful foreclosure suit

ROSEVILLE, Calif. (KCRA) —With an estimated 1.3 million California homeowners in foreclosure, a Roseville attorney says the state Supreme Court has made a decision that could ultimately keep many from losing their homes.

“This is nothing less than a huge victory for homeowners because this provides them with the legal leverage that they have when they are trying to attempt to get some recourse from their bank,” attorney Stephen Foondos said.

Foondos said a Fresno homeowner fought foreclosure in court and won in the case known as Glask v. Bank of America. In the case, the homeowner claimed the financial institution trying to take his home didn’t have the right to because the loan was improperly transferred to a securities trust.

“This trust never owned anything and therefore didn’t have the right to foreclose on Mr. Glaski, which now means Mr. Glaski has the right to sue,” Foondos said.

Five major banks asked the California Supreme Court to keep the Glaski decision from being published so that it couldn’t be used it as precedent in other foreclosure cases around the state.

Lawyers for the financial institutions claimed the decision could be catastrophic for the banking industry.

But this week, five Supreme Court justices sided against the banks and the court is allowing the decision to be used as a legal basis in other future cases.

“These are no joke,” Foondos said. “That’s why the banks have been aggressively trying to suppress this information from the public.”

Foondos said it’s not necessarily a silver bullet that will cut short all foreclosure proceedings, but it could be a legal tool for people at risk of losing their homes.