A 1998 mortgage, a dissolved company, a bankruptcy, and a revival that failed
A mortgage company spent 28 years chasing a foreclosure - and a Massachusetts appeals court shut it down.
The Appeals Court on September 10, 2026, affirmed summary judgment against Main Street Mortgage Group, Corp., ruling judicial estoppel barred the company from obtaining a certificate of title to a residential property in Randolph. The reason: its sole shareholder failed to disclose the mortgage during his personal bankruptcy.
The mortgage dates to October 1998 and was eventually assigned to Main Street. It remained the first-priority lien through every subsequent transfer, including a 2017 sale to the current homeowners, who obtained financing through Caliber Home Loans with MERS as nominee.
On December 31, 2001, Main Street's sole shareholder - also the president, treasurer, clerk, and director - dissolved the corporation. After the statutory wind-down, the note and mortgage passed to him personally.
In October 2010, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. On the required asset schedules, signed under penalty of perjury, he disclosed "none" for business interests and "none" for equitable or future interests. He never listed the mortgage. His liabilities were discharged in February 2011.
A title insurer flagged the missing discharge during the bankruptcy. He never amended his schedules. In 2013, he contacted the insurer saying he had found the original note in Main Street's "archives" and requested personal payment.
In 2016, Main Street's agent registered a certificate of entry on the property - the first step in foreclosure by entry, a rarely used Massachusetts method where a mortgagee holds peaceable, unchallenged possession for three years to foreclose the right of redemption. The sole shareholder later revived the corporation, and in March 2020 Main Street petitioned the Land Court for a new title.
The homeowners, Caliber, and MERS opposed. The Land Court granted summary judgment. The Appeals Court affirmed.
The court rejected Main Street's argument that the judge was required to issue the certificate once procedural steps were met. The statute gives the judge discretion to act "on such terms as equity and justice may require."
On judicial estoppel, the court found the omission amounted to an implicit representation that the asset did not exist - and Main Street then asserted it to foreclose. The court called a debtor's failure to disclose "an implicit representation that the claim does not exist."
For mortgage companies whose principals have been through bankruptcy, what you leave off the schedule does not come back because you want it to.
