Games Lender’s Counsel Play – Motions To Allow Late Answers And Vacate Defaults

I have just experienced a game played by one of the lender/plaintiff’s firms in the NY area. A client came to me with after he already was late in responding to a foreclosure summons. We served and filed an answer. Lender’s counsel rejected it. So to be safe and sure, I served and filed a motion to allow the late answer and vacate the default. Lender’s counsel could have just stipulated but they forced my client – who is already suffering hardship – to incur legal costs to make the motion. The day before the hearing on the motion – which is scheduled to be heard tomorrow in the Brooklyn Supreme Court – the lender’s counsel agreed to the stipulation we requested before we made the motion. It is like this is a game to them. While they are within their rights to reject a late answer, this type of gamesmanship is really unnecessary in this area of law where someone’s home is at stake. In a sense, our motion was successful since it forced the issue and we got the result we wanted, but it would have just been so much easier to stipulate from the start if this lender or its counsel had some decency.