Household Bank v. Lewis

              Supreme Court Summaries
Opinions filed May 22, 2008
No. 104826 Household Bank v. Lewis
Appellate citation: 373 Ill. App. 3d 420.
JUSTICE KARMEIER delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Chief Justice Thomas and Justices Freeman, Fitzgerald, Kilbride, Garman, and Burke concurred in the judgment and opinion.
This Cook County litigation involves a foreclosure proceeding on a home in Country Club Hills. The homeowner’s mortgage obligation to Household, the lending bank, was incurred in 1999. After default, foreclosure proceedings were commenced in 2003. The redemption period expired and a judicial sale took place in 2005, at which Greenwich Investors, appellee here, was the highest bidder. The bid was, however, substantially less than the amount due from the homeowner to the lending bank.
Subsequently, the homeowner found a buyer who would pay more than what was bid at the foreclosure sale. The lending bank, the plaintiff in the foreclosure proceeding, agreed to accept this and moved to vacate the judicial sale, which had not yet been confirmed. This motion was granted by the circuit court. The appellate court found this result inappropriate, however, and the new buyer, the appellant here, appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.
In this decision, the supreme court held that the circuit court had ruled correctly. As plaintiff in the original foreclosure proceeding, the lending bank was permitted by statute to bring that proceeding to a close if it could otherwise make a better recovery. It had a right to control its own litigation.