On May 20, 2026, the Second Department issued a decision in U.S. Bank Trust N.A. v. Barr, 2026 NY Slip Op. 03199, holding that the statute of limitations on a claim for failure to pay the balance due on a mortgage begins to run when the lender demands that the entire balance be paid, explaining:
An action to foreclose a mortgage is governed by a six-year statute of limitations. Even if a mortgage is payable in installments, once a mortgage debt is accelerated, the entire amount is due and the Statute of Limitations begins to run on the entire debt. The borrower must be provided with notice of the noteholder’s decision to exercise the option to accelerate the maturity of a loan, and such notice must be clear and unequivocal. To constitute such clear and unequivocal acceleration of a debt, the notice must demand an immediate payment of the entire outstanding loan and not refer to acceleration only as a future event. A mortgage can be accelerated by the commencement of a foreclosure action, or through an unequivocal acceleration notice transmitted to the borrower. The determinative question is not what the noteholder intended or the borrower perceived, but whether the contractual election was effectively invoked.
Here, the defendant established that the six-year statute of limitations began to run in May 2014, when Caliber accelerated the debt by sending a letter to the defendant advising him of the default and demanding “immediate payment of the entire outstanding loan.” Since the plaintiff did not commence this action until October 2022, more than six years after acceleration of the debt, the defendant met his initial burden of establishing, prima facie, that this action was not timely commenced and, thus, the complaint must be dismissed insofar as asserted against him.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).