Jessie D. Bonaros

Jessie represents lenders, loan servicers, and other financial institutions in consumer finance and real estate litigation.

Jessie Bonaros focuses her practice in commercial and residential foreclosure actions, quiet title actions, and related litigation in New York. She has extensive litigation experience defending lender, investor, and loan servicer clients against claims related to the statute of limitations, standing, lost notes, compliance with state statutes such as RPAPL 1304, contractual conditions precedent, signature forgery, fraud, the Truth in Lending Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

While Jessie has a broad range of experience in all phases of litigation, she primarily handles highly contested matters involving novel legal issues and a high risk of loss. She is skilled at developing creative and original legal arguments to combat complex defenses and claims. Given the nature of her work, Jessie has substantial appellate experience and has assisted in obtaining numerous appellate victories for lender, investor, and loan servicer clients, including from the New York Court of Appeals.

Jessie has co-authored several articles advocating important mortgage industry positions, including concerning mortgage loan acceleration and de-acceleration and the unlawful practice of tolling pre-judgment contractual interest as a sanction against lenders in foreclosure actions. Jessie has proudly provided pro bono legal services to veterans in connection with their disability claims and appeals.

Obtained a favorable decision from a New York state court on a motion to renew a prior summary judgment ruling for the plaintiff lender and on a motion to dismiss a foreclosure action in favor of the loan servicer due to the defendants’ lack of standing, precluding the defendants from asserting the recently enacted Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act (“FAPA”) to reopen the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense. While the court did not rule directly on the FAPA issue, the court noted our constitutional challenges to FAPA were “seriously colorable.”

Obtained a favorable decision on summary judgment for investor client finding that assignee of lost note satisfied requirements of NY UCC 3–804 and established standing to foreclose. Claim that mortgage was void ab initio rejected on ground that borrower waived any right to repudiate the mortgage loan by accepting the benefits thereunder and by making seventeen payments without objection.

Obtained a favorable decision on summary judgment for loan servicer client that precluded a meritorious RPAPL 1304 defense from being interposed in a foreclosure action on the ground that borrower waived the right to assert defense. On a novel point of law, the court ruled that the terms of a consolidation, extension, and modification agreement may waive defenses to foreclosure, including RPAPL 1304 and the statute of limitations.

Obtained a favorable ruling for loan servicer client from New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department allowing late service of process six years after a foreclosure lawsuit was commenced and several years after the borrower vacated a judgment based on improper service and the statute of limitations had expired.

Obtained a favorable ruling for institutional client from New York’s Court of Appeals establishing for the first time, as a matter of law, that payments made on a mortgage debt reset the mortgage foreclosure statute of limitations without a lender having to prove the borrower’s intent in making those payments.

Obtained a favorable ruling for loan servicer client from New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department reversing the Supreme Court’s order, which, in effect, restrained the plaintiff note holder from revoking a prior election to accelerate the subject mortgage debt and dismissed the foreclosure action as time-barred. The Second Department reasoned that the prior election to accelerate was timely revoked via a de-acceleration notice and that plaintiff was not equitably estopped from revoking its election to accelerate.

Argued an appeal for a loan servicer client and obtained a favorable ruling from New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department that precluded a meritorious statute of limitations defense from being interposed in a foreclosure action on the ground that the defendant’s post-action conveyance of collateral property divested it of standing to contest the action.