A buyer was declared the successful bidder and buyer of property sold at a trustee’s sale conducted by an auctioneer. Upon the auctioneer handing the buyer’s full payment to the foreclosure trustee, the trustee discovered he had mistakenly given the auctioneer an incorrect bid amount in his sales instructions, lower than the amount of the credit bid submitted to the trustee by the beneficiary. The trustee returned the payment to the buyer and declined the buyer’s demand to issue a trustee’s deed on the sale, claiming the sale was invalid since the opening bid amount communicated to the auctioneer was incorrect and constituted a procedural irregularity which voided the sale. The buyer claimed the sale was valid since a mistake on the trustee’s part in communicating an incorrect bid amount to the auctioneer was not a procedural irregularity, and thus did not void the sale. A California appeals court held a buyer’s successful bid on a property at a trustee’s sale based on an incorrect opening bid amount mistakenly conveyed by the trustee to the auctioneer is valid since a trustee’s mistake of instructing its auctioneer to open bidding at an incorrect amount is not a procedural irregularity which voids a trustee’s sale. [Biancalana v. T.D. Service Company (2011) 200 CA4th 527]
