Home Foreclosures: 12.8.4 Prejudice or Harm to the Borrower
The prejudice or harm aspect of laches is likely to present more challenges to the advocate, and a creative approach can be helpful. The determination of prejudice is fact-specific, and no fixed standards define the term. As a general rule, the prejudice element looks at whether the party asserting the harm changed position in a way that would not have occurred if the claimant had acted promptly to enforce its claim.193 In the foreclosure context, borrowers must show that the loan owners’ delay placed them in a less favorable position.