Time has always been a vital factor in the prosecution of mortgage foreclosure actions—whether commercial or residential—in part because recouping the lender's money with some dispatch (a word which too seldom finds fulfillment in New York foreclosure actions) was desirable.

More important, the passage of time generates accrual of interest, lender advances for taxes and insurance (perhaps as well property maintenance costs and advances to senior mortgages). In short, time has genuine, practical meaning.

Notwithstanding this verity, New York State legislators have since the millennium promulgated a striking series of borrower-friendly statutes. Not incidentally, and a concept which seems to go unnoticed, these very statutes graft considerable time onto the foreclosure process, both by virtue of their own directives and by fostering requirements which are landmines for lenders; there is just ready room for the foreclosing party to err and thereby incur yet further time.