California Supreme Court
Carol Coker, Plaintiff and Appellant v. Jpmorgan Chase Bank, N.a., Defendant and Respondent
January 21, 201662 Cal. 4th 667
Summary
The court held that the antideficiency protection of section 580b applies to a standard purchase-money home loan when the borrower completes a short sale, not only when the lender conducts a foreclosure sale. Because the short sale exhausted the lender's security and did not transform the loan into a nonstandard or unsecured transaction, the lender could not collect the remaining deficiency. The borrower waived section 726's foreclosure-first procedure by requesting the short sale, but that waiver did not waive section 580b's substantive limit on recovery.