Bank of America Filing-Fee Case May Open ‘New Front’ in Mortgage Lawsuits

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Bank of America Corp. (BAC) is among a group of lenders that may face a wave of new lawsuits claiming the system they’ve used for more than a decade to register mortgages cheated cash-strapped counties out of millions of dollars.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said state attorneys general and county officials across the U.S. have expressed interest in his lawsuit against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. and Bank of America, filed in Texas state court on Sept. 21. Dallas County could be owed as much as $100 million in filing fees, he said.

“This is a big new front,” said Christopher L. Peterson, associate dean and professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. “This case is scary because if Dallas wins then there are a lot of other counties around the country that are going to follow.”

MERS, a unit of Reston, Virginia-based Merscorp Inc., says on its website that its aim is to place every mortgage in the country on an electronic, rather than a paper, system that allows members to buy and sell mortgages. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-22/bank-of-america-filing-fee-case-may-open-new-front-in-mortgage-lawsuits.html

[msongs]

1. should be illegal to sell mortgages - they make money and mortgage holder gets NOTHING from it nt

[unblock]

9. ? when a mortgage is sold, the mortgage holder gets paid. or did you mean the mortgagee?

and if you meant the mortgagee gets nothing, well, the mortgage got the mortgage in the first place, and at the rate and terms agreed upon, in no small part because the lender knew the mortgage could be sold on. same reason secondary markets exist in anything else, such as the stock market.

the problem here isn't the sale of mortgages per se, it's that these sales were done in a way that bypassed essential regulations and protections.

[plumbob]

2. Should be a slamdunk for Dallas County.

There is no legislation anywhere authorizing MERS as an official records depository.

If I told the state I was going to register my vehicles on my own website instead of at the county records office, that would have been a non-starter. Same for this.

[hobbit709]

3. If I have to show an actual piece of paper at the county offices

Then the banks should too.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Exactly!!!!!!

And why did it take the counties so damn long to figure this out????

but now that the counties are cash strapped, I guess treasure hunt is on, no holds barred.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. And this warms the cockles of my karma loving lil heart:

"Faulty mortgages and foreclosures have already cost the five biggest home lenders $66 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bank of America’s credit rating was cut yesterday by Moody’s Investors Service in part because the bill for mortgage disputes may climb past the $39 billion committed since 2007."

[xchrom]

6. Recommend

[Sanity Claws]

7. This article fails to articulate the real problem

It makes it sound as though counties just want money. The reality is that this record-keeping system was how interests in real estate was tracked. This dates back from Britain where land represented wealth and power. Failure to follow this recording system and the courts' giving weight to MERS means that real property title is clouded. This is bad news. What if the state wants to assert eminent domain? It doesn't know who has interest in the property to condemn the property and assert eminent domain.

Any lawyer would have questioned MERS from day one. In fact, I don't see how any attorney ever gave a legal opinion approving the system.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. So, for us homeowners, that is good and bad news.

Bad news in that we know pretty much for sure that our mortgage "servicer" does not own the mortgage,
bad news in that since ( in my case) BOA does not really honestly own the title
my ownership is in question when I sell or pay off
but
good news in that if the county wants to steal my land, no body knows who really owns it!


Aye aye aiieeee

[sarcasmo]

8. Skank of America.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Aha!!! I was wondering who owned MERS....lookee here:

MERS is owned by financial institutions including Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and Stewart Title Guaranty Co., and industry trade groups including the Mortgage Bankers Association and the American Land Title Association. It’s also partly owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing finance agencies now controlled by the U.S. government after being bailed out in the 2008 financial crisis.