Via: Shame The Banks

The registry of deeds is supposed to be a sleepy place where you go to record your mortgage or look up how much your neighbors paid for their homes.

But at the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds in Salem, haymakers are being thrown in a bare knuckles brawl featuring Register John O’Brien in one corner and Bank of America Corp. and other large banks in the other.

In O’Brien’s mind, big U.S. banks created a bogeyman called the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems to dodge paying recording fees when a mortgage is assigned. Early estimates indicate Massachusetts taxpayers have been deprived of anywhere from $200 million to $400 million-plus in lost revenue. O’Brien says his office alone has lost more than $22 million, but he calls that a conservative estimate.