Reuters-

We all know that the foreclosure crisis has been a disaster for state and county governments. When homeowners lose their houses, they stop paying property taxes, which is one of the reasons why municipal governments have been driven to consider ideas like seizing underwater mortgages through the use of eminent domain. We’ve also seen state and local officials file lawsuits against the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, claiming that MERS and its member banks have cheated governments out of mortgage recording fees in the securitization process. MERS has had mixed results in shutting down those cases but so far hasn’t been found liable.

There’s another tranche of litigation that’s gotten much less attention but could result in billions of dollars for state and county governments, courtesy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage guarantors that have taken ownership of thousands and thousands of foreclosed homes. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is weighing a motion to consolidate 23 suits from around the country that claim Fannie and Freddie owe real estate transfer taxes on foreclosed homes they resold. The total exposure for Fannie and Freddie, which are now in federal conservatorship, hasn’t been publicly tabulated, but in the two cases that sparked the MDL motion, the Michigan attorney general and the county government of Oakland, Michigan, claimed that Fannie and Freddie owe millions in transfer taxes just to Oakland County. Class actions already on the dockets have asserted claims on behalf of 13 states, but according to a consolidation motion filed by Genesee County, Michigan, 35 states have real estate transfer tax statutes that could be asserted against Fannie and Freddie. I’d be surprised if most of them (including California and Nevada, which haven’t yet brought cases) don’t end up filing claims.

[REUTERS]

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