Background
Curtis and Tywanic Snell financed the purchase of a mobile home and real property in Mississippi through a promissory note secured by a deed of trust in favor of 21st Mortgage Corporation. After missing their September and October 2023 payments, the Snells sent a series of partial payments, but 21st Mortgage returned them because they were insufficient to cure the continuing default.
A substituted trustee posted a notice of sale at the Oktibbeha County courthouse and advertised the sale in a local newspaper for three consecutive weeks. The foreclosure sale proceeded on May 9, 2024, and 21st Mortgage purchased the property for $61,244.40. The Snells sued to set aside the sale, but the district court granted summary judgment to 21st Mortgage and denied the Snells’ competing motion.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed. On the notice issue, the record contained the substituted trustee’s notice, which included the statutorily required information and was signed and dated by the county chancery court’s land-records clerk. The court also noted that the Snells had abandoned the issue by failing to address it at summary judgment. Even absent abandonment, their unsupported assertion that the notice was not physically posted could not create a genuine dispute of material fact.
The court also rejected the argument that Mississippi Code § 89-1-59 required 21st Mortgage to accept and aggregate the partial payments. Under the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision in Weems v. Transamerica Mortgage Co., the statute does not require a lender to accept payments that do not fully cure the default. The number of attempted payments did not change that rule, and the deed of trust expressly permitted 21st Mortgage to return partial payments insufficient to bring the loan current.
Key Takeaways
- Unsupported allegations that a foreclosure notice was not physically posted do not create a genuine factual dispute at summary judgment.
- Mississippi law does not require a mortgage lender to accept partial payments that are insufficient to cure a default.
- Multiple rejected partial payments cannot be retrospectively aggregated when the record does not show that the borrower would have tendered the combined amount if earlier payments had been accepted.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that borrowers challenging a Mississippi foreclosure must present evidence—not speculation—to dispute compliance with statutory notice requirements. It also confirms that § 89-1-59 provides a right to reinstate by paying the amount required to cure but does not compel lenders to accept a series of insufficient partial payments.