Bazzichelli v. Deutsche Bank , 274 So. 3d 414 ( 2019 )


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  •       Third District Court of Appeal
    State of Florida
    Opinion filed April 3, 2019.
    Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
    ________________
    No. 3D18-1497
    Lower Tribunal No. 11-3727
    ________________
    Francesca Bazzichelli,
    Appellant,
    vs.
    Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, etc.,
    Appellee.
    An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Jose M.
    Rodriguez, Judge.
    The AJM Law Group, P.A. and Alix J. Montes, for appellant.
    Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz and Eve A. Cann (Fort
    Lauderdale), for appellee.
    Before SALTER, LINDSEY, and MILLER, JJ.
    SALTER, J.
    The borrower/defendant in a residential foreclosure case, Francesca
    Bazzichelli, appeals a post-judgment order denying her “Amended Objection to
    Issuance of Certificate of Title [and] Motion to Vacate Amended Final Judgment
    and February 2017 Sale,” entered in July 2018. The final judgment of foreclosure
    was entered in April 2014 and amended to reflect a change in the name of the
    plaintiff (appellee here) five months later.
    Following Ms. Bazzichelli’s bankruptcy proceedings and a foreclosure sale
    in February 2017, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, as Trustee for
    Residential   Accredit    Loans, Inc., Mortgage Asset-Backed           Pass-Through
    Certificates, Series 2006-QS7 (“Deutsche Bank”), moved to re-open the case to
    amend its name in the final judgment of foreclosure and certificate of title.
    Deutsche Bank alleged that the use of an erroneously-abbreviated name for
    Deutsche Bank in those documents had created an inadvertent title impediment
    affecting Deutsche Bank’s sale of the property to a bona fide purchaser.
    Though not denominated as such in the caption or body of the motion, the
    motion fits comfortably within the rule and case law applicable to the correction of
    “[c]lerical mistakes” in “judgments, decrees, or other parts of the record and errors
    therein arising from oversight or omission,” which “may be corrected by the court
    at any time on its own initiative or on the motion of any party and after such
    notice, if any, as the court orders.”    Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.540(a); see also Keller v.
    2
    Becher, 
    256 So. 2d 561
    , 563 (Fla. 3d DCA 1971) (“clerical mistakes include only
    errors or mistakes arising from accidental slip or omission and not errors or
    mistakes in the substance of what is decided by the judgment or order.”). Name
    changes are permitted under Rule 1.540(a) at any time. Howard v. State, 
    139 So. 3d 975
    , 977 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014).
    Ms. Bazzichelli neither alleged nor proved that the amendment altered the
    substance of the final judgment of foreclosure or the certificate of title as to her.
    We also reject her further argument that she should be allowed to use the July 2018
    order approving the amendment to the final judgment as a new occasion for
    seeking to have the entire foreclosure judgment and subsequent certificate of sale
    vacated. As the trial court properly ruled, any errors in the substance of the final
    judgment or the 2017 amendment should have been (but were not) raised on appeal
    from those rulings. See DeGale v. Krongold , Bass & Todd, 
    773 So. 2d 630
    , 632
    (Fla. 3d DCA 2000). Ms. Bazzichelli’s motion to vacate was properly denied.
    Affirmed.
    3
    

Document Info

Docket Number: 18-1497

Citation Numbers: 274 So. 3d 414

Filed Date: 4/3/2019

Precedential Status: Precedential

Modified Date: 4/3/2019