PABLO SALAZAR, APPELLANT,
v.
HSBC BANK, USA, NA, APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 2015-02-11
No. 3D14-230
Before WELLS, LAGOA and LOGUE, JJ.
158 So. 3d 699 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (2015) Negative Treatment
Cited by 7 cases

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Synopsis

In this foreclosure appeal, the court reversed a post-judgment order entered 3.5 years after final judgment that declared the homeowner the prevailing party and purported to dismiss the action. The trial court lacked jurisdiction to modify or dismiss the final foreclosure judgment absent proper procedural grounds, and the homeowner's claims of loan modification negotiations were legally insufficient to vacate the sale.


Holding

No. The trial court lacked jurisdiction to modify, vacate, or dismiss the final judgment of foreclosure. Once the court correctly rejected Salazar's motion to set aside the judgment and his objections to the sale, its jurisdiction ended except to enforce the judgment by issuing writs of possession and deficiency judgments as expressly reserved.


Headnotes

[1] A trial court lacks jurisdiction to enter a post-judgment order that modifies or vacates a final judgment, absent an appropriate motion under Florida Rules of Civil Proce…

[2] Objections to a foreclosure sale must allege a grossly or startlingly inadequate bid resulting from a mistake, fraud, or other irregularity in the sale itself.

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Key Quotes

“Trial courts do not ... have the power, absent an appropriate motion under Florida Rules of Civil Procedure 1.530 or 1.540, to modify a judgment once it becomes final.”

Establishes the fundamental principle that trial courts lack authority to modify final judgments without proper procedural grounds.

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Facts & Procedural History

Salazar was served in a mortgage foreclosure action, failed to answer, and was defaulted. Summary judgment foreclosing the mortgage was entered in Jan…

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Opinion of the Court
WELLS, Judge.

WELLS, Judge.

This is an appeal from a post-final judgment order in a foreclosure action entered some three and one half years after a final judgment was entered. That post-judgment order declares the homeowner the prevailing party in the case and according to the homeowner when combined with earlier orders of the court dismisses the foreclosure action in its entirety. Because the court below was without jurisdiction to enter such a post judgment order, we reverse the order under review with instructions for the immediate release of the certificate of title currently being held by the clerk of the court.

This appeal stems from a simple, straight forward mortgage foreclosure action in which condominium owner Pablo Salazar was served with process, failed to answer or defend in any manner, and was defaulted. A summary judgment foreclosing the mortgage secured by Salazar’s condominium was entered in January of 2009. Salazar filed no post-judgment motions at that time nor did he appeal from the final judgment.

Seven months later, in July of 2009, Salazar’s condominium was sold and a certificate of sale was filed by the clerk of the court. Salazar, in a single motion, objected to the sale and moved to set aside the final judgment claiming only that he had been working with his lender, HSBC, to modify the now foreclosed loan and that HSBC had advised him not to worry about the default or the judgment because they would work it out. Although these grounds were legally insufficient to nullify the foreclosure sale, the sale was vacated. See IndyMac Fed. Bank FSB v. Hagan, 104 So.3d 1232, 1236-1237 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012) (confirming that it is well settled that “[i]n order to vacate a foreclosure sale, the trial court must find: (1) that the foreclosure sale bid was grossly or startlingly inadequate; and (2) that the inadequacy of the bid resulted from some mistake, fraud or other irregularity in the sale.”) (quoting Mody v. Cal. Fed. Bank, 747 So.2d 1016, 1017-18 (Fla. 3d DCA *7011999)) (emphasis added).1 No order was entered on Salazar’s motion to set aside the final judgment.

Six months later, the condominium was sold a second time and a new certificate of sale was filed. Salazar again moved to set aside the final judgment and objected to the second sale asserting the same grounds asserted in his first motion to set aside the final judgment and to nullify the first sale, that is, that he had been trying to renegotiate the now foreclosed loan and that HSBC had advised him that he did not need to worry about the foreclosure action. This time, both his motion to set aside the final judgment and his objection to the sale were denied. While these rulings marked the end of the trial court’s jurisdiction over this matter2 except to *702enforce the final judgment by its terms3, the court below nonetheless ordered the clerk to -withhold the certificate of title until such time as HSBC appeared “to explain why the mortgage modification ha[d] not been completed, ha[d] taken so long, and why [Salazar] will not qualify for a mortgage modification.” The trial court then “dismissed” the case and declared Salazar the prevailing party for the purpose of awarding attorney’s fees after HSBC failed to appear to explain itself.

We reject the argument advanced by Salazar that this last order nullified the final judgment of foreclosure making him the prevailing party for an award of attorney’s fees. “Trial courts do not ... have the power, absent an appropriate motion under Florida Rules of Civil Procedure 1.530 or 1.540, to modify a judgment once it becomes final.” Vargas v. Deutsche Bank Nat’l Trust Co., 104 So.3d 1156, 1165-66 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013) (quoting Levy v. Levy, 900 So.2d 737, 745 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005) (“Trial courts have no authority to alter, modify, or vacate a final judgment except as provided in Florida Rules of Civil Procedure 1.530 and 1.540.”)); see also Cent. Mortgage Co. v. Callahan, 155 So.3d 373 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014) (holding where a final judgment of foreclosure does not reserve jurisdiction to consider a specific matter but only reserves jurisdiction to issue writs of possession and deficiency judgments, a trial court has no jurisdiction to consider matters not specifically authorized by law).

In sum, after the court below correctly rejected Salazar’s last motion to set aside the final judgment (and denied his objections to the last sale), the court below had no authority to either order HSBC to explain why it had not agreed to renegotiate Salazar’s loan or to dismiss this foreclosure action.4

*703The order on appeal is therefore reversed with instructions to the clerk of the court to file and record the certificate of title validating the last sale of Salazar’s condominium. In the event the certificate at issue is no longer valid, the condominium is to be resold and a certificate of sale and title filed and recorded forthwith.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Kingland Ests., Ltd. v. Davis, 170 So. 3d 825 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015)
    …emonstrate that either a false statement was made or that a fraud has been perpetrated and will not support either a conspiracy claim- or RICO claim much less personal jurisdiction under Florida’s long-arm statute. See Salazar v. HSBC Bank, USA, NA, 158 So. 3d 699, 702 n. 4 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015) (“Salazar’s claim that he had been trying to renegotiate his loan and that HSBC had represented that it would be worked out fails to state a claim under any of these grounds including a claim of misrepresentation or frau…
  • …iguous, and PBI and PBLLC did not take the necessary steps to obtain final adjudication of these issues before filing of the certificate of title, or to fall within the very narrow fraud exception to that finality. See Salazar v. HSBC Bank, USA, NA, 158 So. 3d 699, 702 & n.4 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015) (rejecting attempts to vacate foreclosure judgment where claimant failed to file a legally- sufficient claim under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.540(b)); Vargas v. Deutsche Bank Nat’l Tr. Co., 104 So. 3d 1156, 1166 (Fla. 3d DCA 201…
  • …iguous, and PBI and PBLLC did not take the necessary steps to obtain final adjudication of these issues before filing of the certificate of title, or to fall within the very narrow fraud exception to that finality. See Salazar v. HSBC Bank, USA, NA, 158 So. 3d 699, 702 & n.4 (Fla. 3d DCA 2015) (rejecting attempts to vacate foreclosure judgment where claimant failed to file a legally- sufficient claim under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.540(b)); Vargas v. Deutsche Bank Nat’l Tr. Co., 104 So. 3d 1156, 1166 (Fla. 3d DCA 201…

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Authorities Cited (18 total)

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