MERS? It May Have Swallowed Your Loan

[Captain Beefheart]

MERS? It May Have Swallowed Your Loan

By MICHAEL POWELL and GRETCHEN MORGENSON - NYT 3/5/2011

Quote:

FOR more than a decade, the American real estate market resembled an overstuffed novel, which is to say, it was an engrossing piece of fiction.

Mortgage brokers hip deep in profits handed out no-doc mortgages to people with fictional incomes. Wall Street shopped bundles of those loans to investors, no matter how unappetizing the details. And federal regulators gave sleepy nods.

That world largely collapsed under the weight of its improbabilities in 2008.

But a piece of that world survives on Library Street in Reston, Va., where an obscure business, the MERS Corporation, claims to hold title to roughly half of all the home mortgages in the nation — an astonishing 60 million loans.

Never heard of MERS? That’s fine with the mortgage banking industry—as MERS is starting to overheat and sputter. If its many detractors are correct, this private corporation, with a full-time staff of fewer than 50 employees, could turn out to be a very public problem for the mortgage industry.

Judges, lawmakers, lawyers and housing experts are raising piercing questions about MERS, which stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, whose private mortgage registry has all but replaced the nation’s public land ownership records. Most questions boil down to this:

How can MERS claim title to those mortgages, and foreclose on homeowners, when it has not invested a dollar in a single loan?

And, more fundamentally: Given the evidence that many banks have cut corners and made colossal foreclosure mistakes, does anyone know who owns what or owes what to whom anymore?

End Quote:

Click for more fraudulently fun reading...

[RandomThoughts]

1. Spoiler alert.

Probably don't want to read this post if you don't want to hear a spoiler.



For collapse to be successful in leveling consolidations, lack of knowing who owns anything is necessary, so in a way the bankers were working for there own collapse. It works like this, if people are going to do wrong, then that wrong will be fit into some form of correction.


Although I am hoping that particular path is not needed, it is a bit hectic, and has to be global.

Once no ownership can be shown, after a collapse everything will be squatters rights, and even company ownership for things like stores will become employee owned, but that is not the easiest path.


Heh, but they can't figure out the beer and travel money issue.

It was explained in part in this movie.

Wisdom Movie Bank Robbery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGosInpFSsQ

I love it when Curly shows up in a clip :hi: :loveya: (girl in the corner)

With some blockers of coarse.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/there-was-always-that-one-kid-that-ruined-every-dd-game-.../

[Captain Beefheart]

2. Just how will we survive...

...when these insolvent filthy thieving tax cheating Wall Street Goblins go down the drain?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

3. Um, as someone who works in the mortgage industry let me explain to you someting about MERS....

MERS is Mortgage electronic Registry System. It's a way for corporations who like to sell off their loans (we never do once we get them, that makes us different) to save money. It assigns the loan to MERS, who then electronically in their system assigns the loan to that particular bank, instead of reassigning and rerecording docs in every county every time a loan changes hands. It's actually more efficient, to be perfectly honest.
I deal with the properties after they go to foreclosure it is recorded in the name of the bank who owns the property, but before that, it is easier to just switch the servicer name around in MERS.
But what do I know? I've just worked in the mortgage industry for 6 years.
Duckie

[DURHAM D]

4. This is admission of a crime (in fact millions of crimes) -

"...instead of reassigning and rerecording docs in every county every time a loan changes hands. It's actually more efficient, to be perfectly honest."

Every time those transfers happen the county is owed a transfer fee. IOWs - every County in the country (and sometimes the State) is cheated out of money by MERS. I hope they are forced to pay up. My property taxes will then go down.

MERS also destroyed our entire system/history of property law. Fuck them.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

7. They have subverted it, they didn't destroy it.

But OK.

[Poll_Blind]

5. Just wondering if you had a chance to read the article and what you thought of the criticisms?

The whole 3-page article does describe the utility of MERS but also how what appear to be exceedingly sloppy business practices combined with illegal enforcement of foreclosures have far outweighed the benefits of such a system.

With your knowledge and experience do you think (especially at the level they were talking about) that the whole MERS issue might be blown out of proportion? I read the article, and it was fascinating, but I just don't have the experience to have much of an opinion about whether the story is something to get worked up about or not.

PB

[YellowRubberDuckie]

8. Admittedly, no. I will though.

I was just shooting my mouth off at the OP who didn't seem to have a grasp of property law in my opinion.

[Captain Beefheart]

6. Then you should know that...

...just one of MERS functions is to avoid paying recording fees in the county/state where the real property exists. This is in the Constitution. Additionally, it eliminates all transparency when the so called debt obligation changes hands. Therefore, the tax exempt REMIC status of MBS is obscured. Bottom line - they enable tax cheats. More corporate welfare for the needy execs.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

9. I didn't realize it was unconstitutional.

I just thought it was a way companies saved money. We probably have hundreds of thousands of loans that we service. That's expensive when it comes to those fees and the man hours it takes to actually cut the checks. :shrug: In theory it's very efficient.

[Captain Beefheart]

10. Gretchen Morgenson has been wonderful.

She's done a lot of great work exposing this thing. MERS is like a national registry of motor vehicles. Unlike motor vehicles, real property has a tendency to stay in the same place. That is where it's ownership should be recorded. It goes back even further to the Magna Carta.

[ms.smiler]

11. Duckie, with 6 years of experience in the mortgage industry

and a familiarity with MERS, would you kindly explain a few things to me?

In a mortgage, MERS appears in one place as the Mortgagee and elsewhere as merely the Nominee for another company - the supposed lender. So, is MERS the Mortgagee or the Nominee?

What legal status does a Nominee have since it is not defined in the mortgage document?

I can understand how MERS can assign the mortgage to another company. MERS is basically acting as a placeholder in the land records while the Note is bought and sold, leaving everyone clueless as to who actually owns the Notes.

What I don't understand is how MERS can assign something it never owned - the Promissory Note. Please explain how the mortgage is not then separated from the Note.

You sound like one of the many thousands of people across the country that can log into MERS and change data. I find no comfort in the fact that my own family business has a web site with greater security than the MERS database. MERS does not track who logs in or what data is changed. Ever feel mischievous?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. I cannot change data.

I wouldn't know how to log in if I had to. I'm not in that department. It's like you could give me your social security number. I'd have no idea what to do with it. I had no idea their database was that open.
I'm apparently entirely ignorant about this. I will shut the hell up.
Duckie

[ms.smiler]

17. Duckie, you are a darling.

I've been researching these issues for over 2 1/2 years now. As I understand the mortgage industry, everyone is working in a compartmentalized system. Each honest and hard worker plays a small role and lacks a view of the overall scheme in place. I suspect this was not by accident, but by design.

I have no doubt you have a thorough understanding of your particular job. Hopefully, at some point, I will stumble onto the person that has a missing piece of the puzzle.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

20. And you're sweet.

Thank you!
I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Captain Beefheart]

14. Ha Ha! I like the way you think!

Use you favorite search tool and look up something like "MERS Foreclosure Fraud". I believe it was the brainchild of infamous Angelo Mozilo.

"Countrywide is on your side." Remember that little jingle?

[Bigmack]

19. I'm sorry... I just flashed on that joke..

about the undertaker who put two corpses in the wrong coffins. When the family found out, he was able to rectify the situation in just a few minutes.

He just switched heads.

It don't sound natural to just switch banks and owners and like that.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. never heard of MERS. Thank goodness for the internet. So many things coming to light

[Captain Beefheart]

16. Link to MERS 2.0 Search tool.

https://www.mers-servicerid.org/sis/search

[Kip Humphrey]

15. MERS has no paper trail to our mortgages just like we have no paper trail to our elections.

[DainBramaged]

18. ARE YOU A VICTIM OF MERS?

http://merscaught.blogspot.com/2011/01/rk-arnold-leaves-mers-he-is-smart-to.html

This site is created for the specific purpose of providing IMMEDIATE assistance to hurting homeowners. Call, e-mail, fax, write, visit the contacts listed. And don't ever stop reaching out until your problems are resolved.