The Houston Court of Appeals in Bauder v. Alegria issued a decision that a text message can be used to establish the last known address of a borrower for the purposes of delivering a foreclosure notice when it is unclear if the address on the deed of trust is the borrower’s last known address.
In the Bauder case, a woman named Sara Alegria purchased a home at 1825 Neuman Street in La Marque, Texas in 2010 from Gerald Bauder. When Alegria signed a promissory note and the deed of trust, she indicated that her mailing address was 704 Roosevelt Street in La Marque. Over time as Alegria made payments to Bauder, sometimes she delivered her mortgage payments to Bauder, other times Bauder’s son (who was authorized to act for Bauder) would come to the property on Neuman Street to pick up the payments, and sometimes Bauder’s son would pick up the payments from the Roosevelt Street address.
In 2013, the loan was in default due to nonpayment of taxes and failure to maintain insurance, and a notice to cure was sent to the Roosevelt address. The notice indicated that a failure to cure would result in an acceleration of the payments due on the promissory note.
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