Skip to Content (Press Enter)

Skip to Nav (Press Enter)

Effective, Experienced, Exceptional.

Firm Profile

Home Equity Lines of Credit

The following summaries are of recent published decisions of the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The summaries are presented without regard to whether Severson & Werson represented a party in the case.

Subscribe to California Appellate Tracker

Thank you for your desire to subscribe to Severson & Werson’s Appellate Tracker Weblog. In order to subscribe, you must provide a valid name and e-mail address. This too will be retained on our server. When you push the “subscribe button”, we will send an electronic mail to the address that you provided asking you to confirm your subscription to our Weblog. By pushing the “subscribe button”, you represent and warrant that you are over the age of 18 years old, are the owner/authorized user of that e-mail address, and are entitled to receive e-mails at that address. Our weblog will retain your name and e-mail address on its server, or the server of its web host. However, we won’t share any of this information with anyone except the Firm’s employees and contractors, except under certain extraordinary circumstances described on our Privacy Policy and (About The Consumer Finance Blog/About the Appellate Tracker Weblog) Page. NOTICE AND AGREEMENT REGARDING E-MAILS AND CALLS/TEXT MESSAGES TO LAND-LINE AND WIRELESS TELEPHONES: By providing your contact information and confirming your subscription in response to the initial e-mail that we send you, you agree to receive e-mail messages from Severson & Werson from time-to-time and understand and agree that such messages are or may be sent by means of automated dialing technology. If you have your email forwarded to other electronic media, including text messages and cellular telephone by way of VoIP, internet, social media, or otherwise, you agree to receive my messages in that way. This may result in charges to you. Your agreement and consent also extend to any other agents, affiliates, or entities to whom our communications are forwarded. You agree that you will notify Severson & Werson in writing if you revoke this agreement and that your revocation will not be effective until you notify Severson & Werson in writing. You understand and agree that you will afford Severson & Werson a reasonable time to unsubscribe you from the website, that the ability to do so depends on Severson & Werson’s press of business and access to the weblog, and that you may still receive one or more emails or communications from weblog until we are able to unsubscribe you.

Piedmont Capital Management, L.L.C. v. McElfish (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 961

Here, a lender sued on a HELOC loan which provided for monthly payments, gave the lender the discretion to accelerate the loan on default, and provided for any remaining balance to fall due on a specified date.  This decision holds that the HELOC called for separate, divisible performances by the borrower--namely, the monthly payments.  So that the lender could sue… Read More

Reeder v. Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC (2020)

Plaintiff alleged that before he entered into a HELOC in 2005, the lender orally promised him that its maturity in ten years, the lender would refinance the loan or extend its term.  The lender didn't and foreclosed instead when the plaintiff didn't repay all amounts due at maturity of the loan.  Held:  (1) The statute of frauds barred plaintiff's breach… Read More

Bank of New York Mellon v. Citibank

A declaratory relief claim based on equitable subrogation in a priority dispute between two home equity lines of credit is not governed by a three-year limitations period and so was wrongly dismissed.  Read More