On January 7, 2011, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the Land Court's Judgments in U.S. Bank National Association v. Ibanez (and a consolidated case), SJC-10694, and held that two banks, which were not the original mortgagees but who rather claimed to hold the mortgages by virtue of assignments, and who sought to foreclose, failed to show that they were the holders of the mortgages at the time of the foreclosure.  The Court found that the banks did not demonstrate that the foreclosure sales were valid to convey title to the subject properties, and their requests for a declaration of clear title were properly denied.

U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo each foreclosed on mortgaged properties and purchased those properties at the foreclosure sales.  Thereafter, they brought separate complaints in the Land Court and sought judgments that the mortgagors' interests in each property, Antonio Ibanez and Mark and Tammy LaRace, respectively, had been extinguished.  U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo each asserted in the complaints that it had become the holder of the mortgages through an assignment made after the foreclosure sale.