Overview

John protects the interests of lenders, borrowers and guarantors when businesses default on secured loans.  This includes:

• Serving as an advocate during the work out of underperforming loans
• Filing and defending lawsuits to enforce promissory notes, guaranties and other written contracts
• Foreclosing mortgages and enforcing personal property security interests
• Preserving loan collateral by applying for court-ordered receiverships
• Protecting lien rights in bankruptcy court
• Purchasing or selling distressed loans
• Representing court-appointed receivers
• Acting as local counsel for out-of-state lawyers who need to enforce liens within Indiana

John’s practice also includes:

• Representing mortgage loan servicers and the corresponding trusts/investors in contested residential foreclosures, title insurance claims, and tax sale disputes
• Asserting the rights of parties in complex, real estate-related litigation
• Representing companies and individuals in contract disputes

Blog:

Indiana Commercial Foreclosure Law blog

Experience

Creditors’ Rights & Loan-Related Disputes

• In 2016, John was lead counsel in a four-day court trial in Vanderburgh County for a lender and its broker.  In addition to prosecuting the client’s commercial foreclosure claim having a value in excess of $3.0M, John defended the client against a multitude of contract and tort counterclaims asserted by the borrower.
• In 2015, a borrower retained John to serve as an expert witness in a legal malpractice case against the borrower’s attorney, who had represented the borrower in a commercial mortgage foreclosure action in Indiana.  John testified for the borrower at a jury trial held in Chicago.
• Beginning in late 2009 through 2012, John represented the largest secured creditor of a local home builder.  The client held a multi-million dollar loan secured by dozens of lots spread over several Central Indiana counties.  The engagement started with a contested receivership proceeding, which was stayed by the filing of an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy case.  John got the client relief from the automatic stay in bankruptcy court and then negotiated a partial settlement that resulted in the borrower’s transfer of a block of lots to the client instead of a foreclosure.  The remaining thirty-seven lots, which involved many other liens, were the subject of a mortgage foreclosure suit John filed on behalf of the client.  John obtained a summary judgment and decree of foreclosure for the client, and then worked with the client to sell the judgment and loan to a third party.  John was then engaged by the third party assignee to oversee the thirty-seven foreclosure sales.
• In 2012 and 2013, John and his team were counsel for a real estate investor in connection with the purchase of a distressed commercial mortgage loan.  John initiated a foreclosure action and got a receiver appointed over the subject property, a multi-use building.  He and his team next secured a summary judgment.  Immediately before the sheriff’s sale, the borrower filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.  John and his team promptly filed a motion to dismiss the bankruptcy action, which motion resulted in a two-day evidentiary hearing.  The court dismissed the case.  The firm’s client is now the owner of the project.

Real Estate Disputes

• Over the course of about two years from 2013-2015, John worked with counsel in San Diego to defend a real estate investment group that was the winning bidder at a sheriff’s sale of a shopping mall in Indiana. A private auctioneer conducted the sale for the county sheriff. Very shortly after the sale, the client learned of information about the property that led the client to back out of the transaction. The plaintiff lender initiated legal proceedings to compel the sale. John and his team worked with the client’s California team in this hotly contested case in which the plaintiff lender sought $3.51 million from the client and its owners in their personal capacities. Ultimately, the case ended with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana granting summary judgement against the lender and in favor of John’s client on all claims.
• In 2014, John and his team represented a party that, with a partner, invested in the development of two properties in Indiana.  Each investment was secured by a mortgage.  The client’s partner defaulted under both deals.  In one case, the client’s partner, who was the owner of the property, sold the real estate, without notifying the client, and failed to pay the client its agreed-upon return.  Further, the sale occurred subject to the client’s mortgage, which the purchaser’s title company overlooked at closing.  John and his team initiated a breach of contract action against the client’s partner and a statutory strict foreclosure action against the new owner of the property.  The strict foreclosure action evolved into a title dispute with the new owner’s title insurance company.  The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the client (in effect, against the title company).  Shortly before the sheriff’s sale, the title company paid what amounted to policy limits to the firm’s client.
• In September, 2011, John was lead trial counsel for a builder in a construction dispute that involved mechanic’s lien and fraud claims.  The trial lasted a total of nine days in Johnson County, Indiana.

Professional Activities

• Member, Indianapolis and Indiana State Bar Associations

Articles & Presentations

• Presenter, IndyBar (Commercial & Bankruptcy Law Section) “Vignettes from Receivership Cases and Comparisons to Bankruptcy” CLE:  2020
• Presenter, 2014 BKD Financial Services Symposium
• Presenter, National Business Institute Foreclosure Seminar/CLE: 2008-2011.
• Presenter, RMA Central Indiana Chapter, Commercial Real Estate Foreclosure Program: 2010 and 2008.

Awards & Honors

• AV Martindale-Hubbell Rated
• John publishes the blog “Indiana Commercial Foreclosure Law,” perhaps the only website dedicated to commercial foreclosure-related issues in the US and one of the first specialized blogs of its kind in Indiana. http://commercialforeclosureblog.typepad.com
• “The Best Lawyers in America” ®, 2015, 2016, and 2019 in the field of Mortgage Banking Foreclosure Law
• Named “Lawyer of the Year” by “The Best Lawyers in America” for Mortgage Banking Foreclosure Law
• Indiana Super Lawyer in 2004, 2011 – 2019.
• Completion of week-long professional training program in trial skills presented by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.