On December 10, 2025, the Second Department issued a decision in Deutsche Bank Natl. Trust Co. v. Amoah, 2025 NY Slip Op. 06844, holding that documents created by a prior servicer were the business records of the successor servicer because the successor incorporated them into its records and relied upon them in the ordinary course of business, explaining:
Generally, in a mortgage foreclosure action, a plaintiff demonstrates its prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law by producing the mortgage, the unpaid note, and evidence of default. Among other things, a plaintiff can establish a default by submission of an affidavit from a person having personal knowledge of the facts or other evidence in admissible form. The business record exception to the hearsay rule applies to a writing or record and it is the business record itself, not the foundational affidavit, that serves as proof of the matter asserted. Such records may be admitted into evidence if the recipient can establish personal knowledge of the maker’s business practices and procedures, or establish that the records provided by the maker were incorporated into the recipient’s own records and routinely relied upon by the recipient in its own business.
Here, the plaintiff submitted the note, the mortgage, and an affidavit from Felix Rodriguez, a vice president of PHH Mortgage Corporation (hereinafter PHH), the plaintiff’s loan servicer and attorney-in-fact, which demonstrated that the borrower was in default. Contrary to the defendant’s contention, Rodriguez’s affidavit was sufficient to lay a foundation for the admission of certain records as business records, which were created by prior loan servicers, as Rodriguez averred that the records had been incorporated into PHH’s records and were relied upon by PHH in the ordinary course of business.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).