The new Updated Uniform Mortgage (New Jersey, Single Family, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, Uniform Instrument, Form 3031, 07/21) (“Updated Mortgage”)—the most widely used form of mortgage in New Jersey today—is a gamechanger. Except for violation of the due-on-transfer clause, Section 20 gives a borrower an unlimited right to reinstate a defaulted, accelerated mortgage loan until five days before any foreclosure sale, notwithstanding that reinstatement under the Fair Foreclosure Act (“Act”) ends with the final judgment, N.J.S.A. 2A:50-57(a) (“Applicable Law”). Moreover, reinstatement is automatic if applicable conditions are met. And a Section 20 reinstatement is not subject to the Act’s eighteen month limitation on reinstatements. This represents a sea-change in residential mortgage reinstatements in New Jersey pending foreclosure. 

Section 20 of the Updated Uniform Mortgage provides in part: