FAPA 2022: What the Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act Means for Your New York Case

For years, New York homeowners faced a frustrating trap: a bank could drag out a foreclosure for a decade, dismiss the case when the statute of limitations got close, and then file a brand-new case as if the clock had just restarted. The Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act (FAPA), signed into law in December 2022, was the Legislature's direct response. It amended several statutes — including CPLR §§ 203, 205-a, 213(4) and 3217 and General Obligations Law § 17-105 — to shut down those tactics. If your loan was accelerated more than six years ago, or if a prior foreclosure was filed and then dropped on your property, FAPA may be your strongest defense.

What FAPA changed — the four key rules

1. Voluntary discontinuance no longer resets the clock. Before FAPA, lenders sometimes dismissed an old foreclosure case voluntarily to 'stop the clock,' then refiled within six years of the new filing date. FAPA added CPLR § 3217(e) (and CPLR § 203(h)) to provide that a voluntary discontinuance does not waive, postpone, cancel, toll, extend, revive, or reset the six-year limitations period. Once the six-year clock started, it keeps running.
2. Unilateral de-acceleration is blocked. Lenders also sent letters purporting to 'revoke' an earlier acceleration — making the loan current again on paper — arguing this restarted the six years. FAPA restricts this: a lender generally cannot unilaterally de-accelerate a loan solely to extend or revive its right to foreclose.
3. GOL § 17-105 cannot be used to waive the borrower's time-bar defense. General Obligations Law § 17-105 allows parties to extend limitations periods by written agreement — but only with both parties' consent. FAPA clarifies that a mortgage note provision or a lender's unilateral act cannot waive the borrower's accrued statute-of-limitations defense without the borrower's own express written agreement.
4. Savings statutes are limited in the foreclosure context. Courts had sometimes applied the general savings statute (CPLR § 205) to let lenders refile after a dismissal. FAPA added a foreclosure-specific savings statute, CPLR § 205-a, which allows at most one six-month refile and only by the original plaintiff — closing off that route to revival.

Who benefits — and in which cases

FAPA applies retroactively to cases that were pending when the law took effect (December 30, 2022) and to new cases filed after that date. If your foreclosure was still active on that date, FAPA applies to you — retroactivity that the New York Court of Appeals confirmed as constitutional in late 2025. If a new foreclosure has been filed on a loan that was first accelerated more than six years ago, FAPA's anti-re-acceleration rules may block that case entirely.

The clearest beneficiaries are homeowners where:

• A prior foreclosure was filed on the same property, then dismissed or discontinued, and a new case was later filed.
• The original acceleration happened more than six years before the current case was filed.
• The lender sent a letter claiming to 'revoke' acceleration in an attempt to restart the clock.

How to raise a FAPA defense

A statute-of-limitations defense under FAPA does not apply automatically — you must affirmatively raise it:

1. In your Answer as an affirmative defense: for example, 'The action is barred by CPLR § 213(4) as amended by the Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act (L. 2022, ch. 821).'
2. By motion to dismiss under CPLR § 3211(a)(5) if you have not yet answered and the limitations period has run.
3. As a meritorious defense on a motion to vacate a default judgment under CPLR § 5015(a)(1) — a potentially case-dispositive FAPA argument is exactly the kind of defense courts weigh on such motions.

The key facts to gather: the date the loan was first accelerated (often the date the first foreclosure complaint was filed), dates of any prior case filings and dismissals, and any 'de-acceleration' letters received from the servicer.

What FAPA does not do

FAPA does not cancel your mortgage, forgive your debt, or give you ownership of the property. It is a time-based defense to a foreclosure action. If the defense succeeds, the foreclosure action is dismissed — but the underlying loan still exists. Consult a licensed attorney about the full legal consequences of a dismissal in your situation.