Hooker v. Northwest Trustee Services, Inc.

MEMORANDUM

Defendant-Appellant Bank of America (“BOA”) appeals the district court’s grant of sua sponte summary judgment to plaintiffs Ivan and Katherine Hooker. The district court set aside BOA’s nonjudicial foreclosure on plaintiffs’ home, stating that BOA had failed to comply with the recording requirements of Oregon Rev. Stat. § 86.735(1), current version at Or.Rev. Stat. § 86.752(1). We reverse and remand for further proceedings in light of the Oregon Supreme Court’s ruling in Brandrup v. ReconTrust Co., 353 Or. 668 , 303 P.3d 301 (2013), issued after the district court’s decision in this case.

As Brandrup makes clear, the district court correctly held that MERS was not the beneficiary under plaintiffs’ deed of trust, because it is neither the lender nor the lender’s successor in interest. See id. at 304, 309-12. Nor is MERS eligible to serve as the beneficiary simply by being designated as such in the trust deed. Id. at 313-15. Brandrup also clarifies, however, that the transfers between the true beneficiaries of the deed of trust (in this case, the assignments from GN Mortgage to Wells Fargo and then to BOA), which occurred only by operation of law through the transfer of…