Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Julio Mayen and his wife bought a residential property in Jamul in December 2004, taking title as community property and executing a deed of trust naming Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. as lender and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) as beneficiary and the lender's nominee. The deed secured an approximately $1 million promissory note and expressly allowed the note and security instrument to be sold one or more times without prior notice to the borrower. In June 2011, MERS assigned the deed of trust and note to The Bank of New York Mellon (BoNYM), recorded in the county records. BoNYM began nonjudicial foreclosure in June 2023; Mayen asserted the property sold at a trustee's sale on October 20, 2023.
In October 2023, Mayen sued to quiet title against Countrywide, BoNYM, and MERS, alleging the defendants had no valid claim because they could not produce a certified copy of the original promissory note and asserting he was the property's 100% owner. The defendants demurred on three grounds: failure to allege compliance with the tender rule, failure to join Mayen's wife as a necessary and indispensable party, and judicial estoppel based on his three prior bankruptcies, in which he never listed the claim as an asset. The trial court sustained the demurrer on the tender and necessary-party grounds, with leave to amend as to Countrywide and BoNYM but not MERS. After Mayen filed a first amended complaint in April 2024, the court sustained the demurrer again without leave to amend, entering dismissals against BoNYM on November 18, 2024, and Countrywide on December 18, 2024.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal affirmed, first holding that the trial court acted within its discretion in taking judicial notice of publicly recorded real property records. Courts routinely notice such records because recordation and maintenance in the recorder's office place their existence and text beyond reasonable dispute. A court may notice a recorded document's operative language and legal effect, but not the truth of factual recitals. Here, Mayen attached the deed of trust to his complaint and raised no specific authenticity challenge to the assignment, so the noticed records established each link in the chain of title: the grant deed to Mayen and his wife, the deed of trust conveying a security interest to MERS as Countrywide's nominee, and the assignment transferring that interest to BoNYM.
The court then held the demurrer was properly sustained on tender rule grounds. A borrower may not quiet title against a secured lender without first paying the outstanding debt, unless the borrower attacks the validity of the debt itself. Mayen never alleged he paid or was excused from paying; the foreclosure sale's timing was irrelevant because he sought only to quiet title, and his securitization and chain-of-title attacks failed because the deed of trust expressly permitted sale of the note without borrower consent and the two-link chain was established by noticed records. Because Mayen did not show he could cure the defect by further amendment, the denial of leave to amend was not an abuse of discretion.
The court rejected Mayen's due process challenges: California Rules of Court, rule 3.1308 does not require a court to consider written objections to a tentative ruling, the court could regulate the hearing, and it repeatedly allowed Mayen to address the merits. Finding no error, the court found no cumulative error. Because the tender ground was well taken, the court did not reach the necessary-party or judicial-estoppel grounds. The judgment was affirmed, with respondents awarded costs on appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A borrower cannot quiet title against a secured lender without first paying the outstanding debt, unless the borrower attacks the validity of the underlying debt itself.
- Courts may take judicial notice of publicly recorded real property records to establish a chain of title when each link is established by the document's operative provisions, not hearsay recitals.
- A deed of trust provision allowing the note to be sold without prior notice to the borrower defeats a borrower's claim that assignment required his consent.
- A trial court does not deny due process by declining to consider a written objection to a tentative ruling or by regulating a hearing at which the party was repeatedly invited to address the merits.
- An appellate court will affirm a demurrer dismissal if any one ground is well taken, without reaching the others.
Why It Matters
This unpublished decision reinforces the tender rule as a threshold requirement in quiet title actions and clarifies that judicial notice of recorded real property records extends to operative provisions and legal effect, but not to the truth of factual recitals. It confirms that vague allegations of systemic securitization irregularities cannot substitute for identifying a specific defect in the borrower's own chain of title, and it affirms broad trial-court discretion in managing demurrer proceedings against due process challenges.