Perry & Co. v. Crsj , 2015 Fla. App. LEXIS 11342 ( 2015 )

Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed July 29, 2015.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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No. 3D14-2510
Lower Tribunal No. 14-11422
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James F. Perry & Company,
Appellant,
vs.
CRSJ, Inc.,
Appellee.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, John
Schlesinger, Judge.
Sapurstein & Bloch, P.A., and Bertram A. Sapurstein, for appellant.
Jay M. Levy, P.A., and Jay M. Levy; Law Offices of Keith D. Diamond,
P.A., and Keith D. Diamond (Hollywood), for appellee.
Before WELLS, ROTHENBERG, and SCALES, JJ.
ROTHENBERG, J.
James F. Perry & Company (“the Lender”) appeals from an order entering
partial summary final judgment in favor of CRSJ, Inc., in which the trial court
determined that a mortgage executed by CRSJ on property owned by CRSJ “shall
have no force and effect.” We affirm.
We find it unnecessary to set forth the facts leading to the trial court’s order
and write solely to indicate the lack of merit in the Lender’s position. We find the
trial court correctly determined that the subject mortgage “shall have no force and
effect” because the lien of the subject mortgage terminated five years after its
stated maturity date of October 1, 2008. See § 95.281(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (2013).
Prior to the termination of the lien, the Lender took no action to foreclose the
mortgage, and at no time did the parties execute and record an agreement
extending the maturity date of the mortgage. See § 95.281(2), Fla. Stat. (2013)
(providing that “[i]f an extension agreement executed by the mortgagee . . . and
the mortgagor . . . is recorded, the time shall be extended . . . .”) (emphasis
added); Am. Bankers Life Assurance Co. of Fla. v. 2275 W. Corp., 905 So. 2d 189,
192 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005) (rejecting mortgagee’s “claim that its lien is still valid
because correspondence between the parties . . . extended the maturity date of the
mortgage” where the correspondence was not only “indefinite in all particulars,”
but “also does not comply with the recordation requirements mandated by section
95.281(2), of the Florida Statutes, which extends the life of the mortgage lien ‘[i]f
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an extension agreement executed by the mortgage . . . and the mortgagor . . . is
recorded’” (brackets in original) (quoting § 95.281(2))); Zlinkoff v. Von
Aldenbruck, 765 So. 2d 840, 842 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000) (holding that section 95.281
requires that an extension of the maturity date set forth in the mortgage must be
recorded in order to extend the time to file a foreclosure action, and that the parties
did not enter into a valid extension although there was evidence that there was an
oral agreement and an unrecorded written agreement to extend the final maturity
date). Accordingly, we affirm the order on appeal.
Affirmed.
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