I. INTRODUCTION

With the national economy remaining on the edge of recession, unemployment stubbornly staying above 9%, and median home prices well below their 2007 peak, California courts have seen a significant uptick in challenges to residential foreclosure sales in recent years. In many of these cases, the plaintiff homeowners believed that they had entered into enforceable agreements with their lender, either in writing or orally, for forbearance or postponement of foreclosure and, after their homes were sold in apparent contravention of those agreements, filed suit to recover under claims of breach of contract and/or promissory estoppel.

This article summarizes several of the more notable cases of recent years addressing these claims. These cases, which include one from before the financial crisis, one from the 2008 height of the crisis, and two from the years since the recession technically ended, demonstrate that, while the outcomes in all such cases remain very fact-specific, there is a subtle trend within the appellate courts toward a more borrower friendly, equity-oriented approach as the foreclosure crisis persists.