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Quick AnswerIn a decision filed July 9, 2026, Justice Derefim B. Neckles of the Supreme Court, Kings County, dismissed a 2012 Brooklyn foreclosure brought by Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, as trustee. New York's RPAPL 1306 gives a lender three business days to report its 90-day pre-foreclosure notice to the state. The bank mailed its notices on February 17, 2010, and reported them on March 1, 2010, five business days late. A 2017 ruling had excused the delay as "de minimis." After the Appellate Division, Second Department, required strict compliance in two June 2025 decisions, Petroff Amshen asked the court to renew that ruling. The court granted renewal, held that the delay "constitutes a fatal procedural defect," granted summary judgment to the borrowers and dismissed the complaint against them.
New York gives borrowers two protections before a foreclosure can start. RPAPL 1304 requires the lender to mail a 90-day warning notice to the borrower. RPAPL 1306 then requires the lender to report that notice to the state banking regulator within three business days of mailing it.
Deutsche Bank National Trust Company, as trustee, mailed its 90-day notices to the borrowers on February 17, 2010. Its report was due by February 22, 2010. It filed on March 1, 2010, five business days late. The bank sued to foreclose on the Brooklyn property in June 2012.
In an April 20, 2017 decision, the court acknowledged the filing was late. It still excused it, calling the delay "de minimis and not prejudicial" because it was "a few days late and significantly before the action was commenced." For years after that, the late filing was treated as settled.
Then the law moved. On June 25, 2025, the Appellate Division, Second Department, whose rulings bind Brooklyn's trial courts, decided two cases called Bank of N.Y. Mellon v. Peralta and Deutsche Bank Natl. Trust Co. v. Goetz. In Peralta the filing was eight business days late. In Goetz it was seventeen days late. Both foreclosures were dismissed. The court in Peralta said "strict compliance" with the three business day deadline "is required."
We moved to renew the 2017 ruling on behalf of our client, arguing that Peralta and Goetz changed the law. A five business day delay, we argued, was legally indistinguishable from the delays that sank those two cases.
We also showed that the change was real. A Kings County judge had already begun citing Peralta as binding authority and denying summary judgment where a lender's state filing fell short. As we put it in our reply, if those decisions were only a restatement of old law, "the courts in this county would not be citing them as the source of the applicable standard."
The bank argued the 2017 ruling was settled and could not be reopened. We answered that the law of the case cannot block a renewal motion built on new appellate authority, because otherwise the renewal statute would mean nothing. The bank also said strict compliance had always been the rule. Justice Derefim B. Neckles disagreed. Before Peralta and Goetz, the court explained, "there had previously been no binding authority directing trial courts on how to address a failure to satisfy RPAPL § 1306." Those decisions supplied it, and the court held they "represent a sufficient change in the law to warrant granting leave to renew."
Applying the strict standard, the court found:
The delay constitutes a fatal procedural defect in the commencement of this foreclosure action.Supreme Court, Kings County, Decision and Order, 2026
In 2017 the court called the delay "de minimis and not prejudicial." In 2026 it called it "a fatal procedural defect."
The record, in order: the deadline, the bank's filing, and what the court held on each argument.
RPAPL 1304 requires the lender to mail a 90-day warning notice. RPAPL 1306 then requires it to report that notice to the state within three business days. Both are conditions the lender has to meet before it can sue.
In Peralta, the Appellate Division, Second Department, held that "strict compliance" with the three business day deadline "is required." Under that standard, the court held, failing to file on time "constitutes a fatal defect in a foreclosure action."
A motion to renew lets a court revisit an earlier order when the law has changed. The 2017 ruling was not the end of the story.
We see New York foreclosures that have been in court for a decade or more. Somewhere in those files there may be a ruling that forgave a lender's missed deadline as harmless. After Peralta and Goetz, that kind of ruling may be worth revisiting.
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