Observer-Reporter-
Recorder of Deeds Debbie Bardella on Thursday brought a class-action suit in Washington County Court against an electronic registration firm and several lending institutions, claiming they failed to timely record mortgages during intermediary steps of forming mortgage-backed securities, creating “gaps in the record of ownership of title on Pennsylvania properties” and causing counties to lose millions of dollars in recording fees.
Many “promissory notes on properties in Washington County and throughout Pennsylvania have been sold and assigned on multiple occasions, but there is no recording” of promissory notes in the public record as they progress through these various steps, Bardella’s attorney, D. Aaron Rihn of Pittsburgh, asserts in the complaint.
To the extent that the lenders record mortgage assignments at all in connection with their transfers of promissory notes, “they usually do so only well after the 90-day deadline imposed” by state law to file a document known as a “satisfaction” or to facilitate foreclosure proceedings because of default.
“In such cases, the mortgage assignment is often recorded many years after the recording deadline has passed,” the suit claims.