Bookmark MERS
Take a deep breath and then explain what this is about.
“Deed of trust or trust deed is a deed wherein legal title in real property is transferred to a trustee, which holds it as security for a loan (debt) between a borrower and lender. ... The borrower is referred to as the trustor, while the lender is referred to as the beneficiary.”
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems
From a mortgage registered with MERS:
“MERS is a separate corporation that is acting solely as a nominee for Lender and Lender’s successors and assigns. MERS is the mortgagee under this Security Instrument. MERS is organized and existing under the laws of Delaware...”
Document proceeds to identify the actual lender, in the case at hand it’s a local bank.
All of the Bankers should have been rounded up and executed when this all came to light years ago.
I worked as a loan broker during that period, briefly. I remember very well a Countrywide Funding meeting, in which for loan “products” were presented. Product one was a conventional 20% down 38% income conforming loan. Product 2, the borrower left out information regarding his income. Product three the borrower left out income and where that income might have come from. Product number 4, the borrowers submitted a blank application with only their name on it.
Depending upon whether the Countrywide regional manager had enough loans to fill their quarterly quota, such a loan would be approved. In effect, they would approve a loan for your dog, or for your lawn ornament. I remember very well walking out of that meeting kind of in a daze, wondering what the implications were, for the entire lending system, and I don’t claim that I fully understood them at the time. But it was clear that astronomical numbers of really, really bad loans were being made.
I worked as a loan broker during that period, briefly. I remember very well a Countrywide Funding meeting, in which for loan “products” were presented. Product one was a conventional 20% down 38% income conforming loan. Product 2, the borrower left out information regarding his income. Product three the borrower left out income and where that income might have come from. Product number 4, the borrowers submitted a blank application with only their name on it.
Depending upon whether the Countrywide regional manager had enough loans to fill their quarterly quota, such a loan would be approved. In effect, they would approve a loan for your dog, or for your lawn ornament. I remember very well walking out of that meeting kind of in a daze, wondering what the implications were, for the entire lending system, and I don’t claim that I fully understood them at the time. But it was clear that astronomical numbers of really, really bad loans were being made.
Not a lawyer, so maybe a stupid question.
Does this automatically propagate to other states, or do we have to fight the battle state by state?
MERS was a mechanism to facilitate the transfer and service of these loans.
This came about because none of banks, etc wanted to hold sub prime mortgages. So a method of packaging all mortgages was developed to sell these sub prime mortgages. A fast and efficient method of transfer and servicing was needed due to the large number of mortgages being sold and resold.
Only problem the MERS system was not recognized by the laws covering mortgages, so the ownership of the loans was impossible to determine under MERS. Hard to sue to collect money on a mortgage you cannot legally prove you own!
Talk about putting the cart before the horse! All that was needed was to pass laws addressing MERS.
Want to see something really scary?
http://www.consumercr.com/en/us-bankruptcy.aspx
“Federal Judge Rules: MERS Mortgage Transfers are Illegal”
https://www.mers-servicerid.org/sis/
MERS ServicerID. Enter mortgage i.d. number or property address to identify the servicer associated with a mortgage loan registered on the MERS system.
How many hundreds of millions of dollars did MERS foreclose on in the past 10 years?