--- On Mon, 4/25/11, Private Attorney General <justice0927@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
From: Private Attorney General <justice0927@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Pennsylvania Clerk complains that MERS deprives her of registration fees: thuuuuuuu
To: "Private Attorney General" <justice0927@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Monday, April 25, 2011, 6:36 PM
Debbie sent me the below story, highlighted to make her points.
A Pennsylvania clerk complains that Merscorp registers mortgages and that deprives her of recording fees. The clerk obviously does not understand what Merscorp does. Merscorp registers assignments of beneficial interest in the promissory notes borrowers sign. Merscorp does not register mortgages. The County Clerks register mortgages. County Clerks have NEVER registered notes or assignments of beneficial interest in the notes. Lenders have no legal duty that I know of to register mortgages with the County Clerk. If they don't, however, they cannot prevent the owner of record from selling the realty to someone else and giving a clear title. So, MERS does that for them. Merscorp registers assignments of beneficial interest in Notes, and MERS registers the mortgage with the Clerk.
No matter how many times beneficial interest in the note changes hands, the actual mortgage stays in the name of MERS or some other servicer who alleges the right (as nominee of the holder in due course of the note) to force a foreclosure sale for a borrower's default in making loan payments. I and many others argue that the servicer/mortgagee has no right to force the foreclosure sale without a contract of agency from the holder in due course. In other words, nominee status confers no actual right to force a foreclosure sale. When borrowers default in their payments, they do not thereby injure the mortgagee unless the mortgagee's name appears on the note as the present holder in due course, or the mortgagee has a contract of agency to force the sale. Also, the holder in due course has no right to force a foreclosure sale without either that contract of agency with the mortgagee OR the holder in due course's name on the mortgage security instrument as mortgagee.
The Clerk has no valid complaint or cause of action against MERS or Merscorp. They have violated no law. The Clerk has no right to demand that everyone who becomes assignee of the interest in the note also register a mortgage with the Clerk and pay a registration fee.
Bob Hurt – Home Page - Email – 727 669 5511
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1. Montgomery County, PA Recorder of Deeds Nancy Becker Joins O'Brien on MERS, Pulls Funds From Wells Fargo - 2011-04-16 19:38:10-04
Via TimesHerald: COURTHOUSE — Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds Nancy Becker is urging registers of deeds across state and the country to withdraw public money from any banks affiliated with the Mortgage Electronic Registry System (MERS), which she claims is undermining the practice of accurate land recording. [...] Since discovering the descrepancies, Becker has [...]
Norristown and Montgomery County, PA
News
County questions accuracy of electronic mortgage registry
Published: Saturday, April 16, 2011
0diggsdigg
By KEITH PHUCAS
Times Herald StaffCOURTHOUSE — Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds Nancy Becker is urging registers of deeds across state and the country to withdraw public money from any banks affiliated with the Mortgage Electronic Registry System (MERS), which she claims is undermining the practice of accurate land recording.
In recent years, mortgages have been assigned and reassigned multiple times, and when a bank or other entity doesn't properly report these transfers, it makes it very difficult for homeowners to determine who holds their mortgages.
"It clouds the chain of title, and it's prohibiting (officials) from recording revenues they should be recording," Becker said.
Since 2004, she estimates the county has lost $15 million in fees from 139,798 mortgages recorded via the electronic recording system that fails to reflect assignments. Becker said she fields calls about once a month from a homeowner seeking help finding proof a mortgage has been satisfied, so the person can sell their house.
"The problem is finding out where or with what firm a mortgage is assigned," she said.
According to mersinc.org, MERS operates the only national, centralized database that tracks mortgage loans, "building on the public county land record systems to make mortgage loan information more accessible and transparent." The database reportedly links homeowners to their servicers and is used by communities to identify parties responsible for vacant properties, and by law enforcement to combat mortgage fraud.
John L. O'Brien Jr., a Massachusetts Register of Deeds in Salem, who has written letters to his state officials over the past year about the MERS fallout, caught Becker's attention recently.
"MERS has attempted to undermine my authority as Register of Deeds and in doing so has violated state property laws," O'Brien wrote in a March 10 letter to state Attorney General Martha Coakley. "MERS must be made to pay back the fees that are owed to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts but also and equally as important to repair the chain of title of property and restore the integrity of the land recordation systems both here and across the country."
This week, Becker sent similar letters to county Treasurer Tom Ellis, Pennsylvania Treasurer Rob McCord and the state's Acting Attorney General William Ryan Jr., saying that she had joined the nationwide effort against financial institutions that have partnered with electronic recording service, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, PNC and Sovereign, among others, which she alleges are "circumventing" proper recording.
"It's just sloppy, sloppy work," she said.The electronic system is referred to in many county mortgage documents this way: "MERS is a separate corporation that is acting as sole nominee for Lender and Lender's successors and assigns. MERS is the mortgagee (lender) under this security instrument."
"What I'd like to get out to new homebuyers is that, if they're going to settlement and they see their bank slash MERS, to be cautious," she said.
Since discovering the descrepancies, Becker has pulled the county funds out of Wells Fargo and transferred the money into Univest National Bank and Trust Company, a smaller local bank based in Souderton. The bank had been approached by MERS but decided not to partner with the cyber registry.
"They're just a really good conservative bank," the Recorder of Deeds said.
This week, MERSCORP Inc., and its subsidiary, MERS Inc. agreed to review their internal procedures and processes after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and other federal agencies "identified certain deficiencies and unsafe or unsound practices by MERS and MERSCORP that present financial, operational, compliance, legal and reputational risks to MERSCORP and MERS, and to the participating Members," according to a consent order dated April 13.
In connection with services related to tracking, registering residential mortgage loans and initiating foreclosures, MERS and MERSCORP "have failed to exercise appropriate oversight, management supervision and corporate governance, and have failed to devote adequate financial, staffing, training, and legal resources to ensure proper administration and delivery of services to Examined Members," according to court papers.
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By KEITH PHUCAS
Times Herald Staff
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Re: Fw: Pennsylvania Clerk complains that MERS deprives her of registration fees: thuuuuuuu
On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Jim Crow <cornmash008@yahoo.com> wrote:
