NOTICE OF DEFAULT DID NOT ACCELERATE THE MORTGAGE DEBT; THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS DID NOT BEGIN TO RUN IN THIS FORECLOSURE ACTION (SECOND DEPT).
The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined the mortgage debt was never accelerated and therefore the six-year statute of limitations did not begin to run in this foreclosure action:
An action to foreclose a mortgage is subject to a six-year statute of limitations (see CPLR 213[4]). “[E]ven if a mortgage is payable in installments …, once a mortgage debt is accelerated, the entire amount is due and the Statute of Limitations begins to run on the entire debt” … .
… [T]he May 3, 2007, notice of default, which advised that the loan would be accelerated if the default was not cured by June 7, 2007, was “nothing more than a letter discussing acceleration as a possible future event, which [did] not constitute an exercise of the mortgage’s optional acceleration clause” … . U.S. Bank N.A. v Mongru, 2020 NY Slip Op 03137, Second Dept 6-3-20