A Judge Jeffrey Arlen Spinner, of the Supreme Court of New York's Suffolk County gave a Brookhaven, New York consumer whose loan servicer, IndyMac Mortgage Services, had obtained a judgment of foreclosure and sale a holiday reward for trying to work things out with the lender, while giving the lender ashes and switches for its misconduct. The lender had badly delayed participation in a settlement conference required by New York law for sub-prime loans. When a bank officer finally did appear, she was condescending, unwilling to discuss a sale to the borrower's daughter for fair market value, or a reasonable modification. In addition she used inconsistent numbers to describe the debt. The Court considered IndyMac's behavior to be outrageous. Since foreclosure is a special remedy not just a request for money, the Court decided the case under rules that require a party seeking the equitable relief of a foreclosure to come into court with "clean hands"--something the servicing company lacked. In the end, the Judge got so angry that he decided sanctions would not teach IndyMac a lesson and extinguished the borrower's debt altogether. If you want to read a great story about a bank getting a beat-down, see here: http://livinglies.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/indymac-bank-fsb-v-yano-horosky.pdf
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