By Diana Eng and Andrea Roberts (August 7, 2018, 3:50 PM EDT) -- Mortgage servicers and other financial institutions have been battling the issue of what affirmative act "clearly and unequivocally" accelerates a mortgage debt for years. Currently, there is a split in authority between the First and Second Departments of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division regarding whether a notice of default using the words "will be accelerated" clearly and unequivocally accelerates a mortgage debt upon the expiration of the cure period. The First Department has ruled that a notice of default indicating that the debt "will be accelerated" automatically accelerates the debt once the cure period expires. However, the Second Department reached the opposite conclusion and has held that a notice of default using the word "will" refers to a future event and therefore does not clearly and unequivocally accelerate the debt. This heavily litigated gray area in the law is ripe for the New York Court of Appeals to adjudicate....