A federal judge in Oregon ruled against MERS, the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, in a foreclosure case and delivered a potential setback to the mortgage industry’s electronic lien-registry system.
Theories exist that one purpose for the existence of MERS is to avoid paying the recording fees to the various county recorders. By Using MERS, banks have avoided millions, and possibly more in recording fees.
The homeowners in this case were clearly in default. They hadn’t made a payment since 2009.
Oregon law, like that in Nevada, allows for non-judicial foreclosures. The provisions, however, are that any transfer of ownership of the liens and the documents must be properly recorded in the local county.
The banks and MERS apparently didn’t think the rules were important enough to follow. Sometimes, I think it is a calculated risk. They are going to get caught once in a while, but the rest of the time it is worth while.
In this case, the banks and MERS got caught. There were significant gaps in the chain of title. Also, three separate documents were recorded, signed by three separate vice presidents of MERS, and each notarized by the same notary.
Read the rest here and here for the original ruling. (notice that some of the links did not work for me every time even though the url was identical, but I was able to find the documents in question. My only explanation is that it must be magic??? Iaf you still have problems, contact me and I’ll try to help.)
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