SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit regarding a home foreclosure against Wells Fargo, citing that the plaintiffs failed to present direct documentary proof of their claim that Wells Fargo did not acquire their loan.
Judge Edward M. Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Wells Fargo Bank, NA, et al.'s motion to dismiss and instructed the clerk to close to case filed by plaintiffs Virginia Gualberto and the 2017 Agaton & Virginia Gualberto Family Trust on March 5.
The case regards a “Pick-A-Payment Loan” plaintiff Virginia Gualberto made in 2007 through the World Savings Bank, the original lender of the loan. Through a series of company purchases, operations of the World Savings Bank fell under the ownership of Wells Fargo in 2008, which claims then to have received servicing rights to the plaintiff’s original loan, the ruling states.
On April 19, 2018, Wells Fargo filed a notice of default on Gualberto’s property, which was later sold at a trustee’s sale that August. This led the plaintiffs to claim they had sold their mortgage to the WSR 30 Trust before Wells Fargo’s purchase of the World Savings Bank.
"Plaintiffs, however, present no direct documentary proof of sale of their mortgage to the trustor sufficient allegations for the court to plausibly believe that Wells Fargo does not own the loan," Chen wrote in the ruling.
Chen also found that provisions under the Home Owners' Loan Act protects Wells Fargo’s ownership of Gualberto’s original loan and that the plaintiffs failed to allege any factual claim against so. He wrote in the ruling that it is “uncontested that plaintiffs’ loan was owned by World Savings Bank.”
"Beyond this fact, plaintiffs do not claim to know that their loan was in fact sold to the WSR 30 Trust. It cites no document directly proving their supposition. Plaintiffs’ assertion is based purely on inference, a speculative one at that," Chen wrote.
This case follows a series of lawsuits that have addressed similar claims regarding the Home Owner’s Loan Act, including Terrezas v. Wells Fargo Bank, which also found that the act demonstrates Wells Fargo’s ownership of loans sold by subsidiaries.