In Yvanova v. New Century Mortgage Corp., 62 Cal. 4th 919 (Cal. 2016) the California Supreme Court resolved what it described as the narrow question on which it granted review: "whether the borrower on a home loan secured by a deed of trust may base an action for wrongful foreclosure on allegations a purported assignment of the note and deed of trust to the foreclosing party bore defects rendering the assignment void." (Yvanova, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 923.) The court held "an allegation that the assignment was void, and not merely voidable at the behest of the parties to the assignment, will support an action for wrongful foreclosure." (Id. at p. 924.) Although the court rejected the financial institution defendants' argument that the plaintiff had no standing to bring a wrongful foreclosure claim based on an allegedly defective assignment, the court's opinion did include language disclaiming any intent to resolve questions concerning the substantive elements of the wrongful foreclosure tort or the factual showing needed to meet those elements. (Ibid.) The California Supreme considered whether a borrower who alleges that a transfer in the chain of title of the promissory note was legally void has standing to bring an action for wrongful foreclosure. In finding standing, the court began with the premise that if an assignment in the chain of title of the note is void, the assignment has no legal effect. As a result, neither that assignee, nor any subsequent transferee of the note, actually acquires title to the note, which is required to confer legal authority to initiate foreclosure. Any foreclosure initiated by such an assignee or transferee is therefore necessarily wrongful, since the person or entity initiating the foreclosure lacks the legal authority to do so. Because the borrower is the victim of a wrongful foreclosure, the borrower has standing to challenge the void assignment. (Yvanova, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 935.) As important as the issue it decided, however, are the issues left unaddressed by Yvanova. First, the court discussed decisions of the Court of Appeal holding that a borrower whose home has been threatened with foreclosure, but has not yet been subject to a trustee's sale, cannot bring a preemptive action to challenge the proposed foreclosure, based on an allegedly void assignment. (Yvanova, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 933.) The court declined to rule on the propriety of these decisions, expressly noting that the issue of preemptive actions "is not within the scope of our review, which is limited to a borrower's standing to challenge an assignment in an action seeking remedies for wrongful foreclosure." (Id. at p. 934.) Second, Yvanova did not address whether, as a matter of law, the allegedly void assignment pleaded by the plaintiff actually was void, as opposed to merely voidable. This distinction is crucial because, as the court noted, its rationale for standing depends entirely on the void, rather than voidable, nature of the transfer: "When an assignment is merely voidable, the power to ratify or avoid the transaction lies solely with the parties to the assignment; the transaction is not void unless and until one of the parties takes steps to make it so. A borrower who challenges a foreclosure on the ground that an assignment to the foreclosing party bore defects rendering it voidable could thus be said to assert an interest belonging solely to the parties to the assignment rather than to herself." (Yvanova, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 936.) Accordingly, Yvanova expressly recognized, without holding, that a borrower may well lack standing to challenge a foreclosure premised on an assignment that, while ineffective, is voidable rather than void. (Id. at p. 939.) In Yvanova, supra, 62 Cal.4th at page 924, the court stated as follows: "Our ruling in this case is a narrow one. We hold only that a borrower who has suffered a nonjudicial foreclosure does not lack standing to sue for wrongful foreclosure based on an allegedly void assignment merely because he or she was in default on the loan and was not a party to the challenged assignment. We do not hold or suggest that a borrower may attempt to preempt a threatened nonjudicial foreclosure by a suit questioning the foreclosing party's right to proceed." Later, the Yvanova court added, the following: "This aspect of Jenkins, disallowing the use of a lawsuit to preempt a nonjudicial foreclosure, is not within the scope of our review, which is limited to a borrower's standing to challenge an assignment in an action seeking remedies for wrongful foreclosure. . . . We do not address the distinct question of whether, or under what circumstances, a borrower may bring an action for injunctive or declaratory relief to prevent a foreclosure sale from going forward." (Yvanova, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 934.)