Taunton Gazette-

The Bristol County Board of Commissioners received a letter from Attorney Garrett Bradley notifying them that a complaint against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) was filed in Suffolk County on March 29.

Previously, the commissioners voted on Feb. 14 to file a lawsuit to reclaim millions of dollars from MERS for allegedly skirting public recording laws at the expense of the county’s three property registries.

Bristol County is joining Norfolk and Plymouth counties in filing lawsuits against MERS.

Commissioners have previously said the county won’t know exactly how much money they are looking to collect until the discovery process of litigation.

Read more: [TAUNTON GAZETTE]

More kool-aid drinking… Are they for real?

Bloomberg-

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. and Bank of America Corp. asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Texas counties accusing MERS of filing false claims in property records.

The counties allege Merscorp Inc.’s MERS was established by lenders including Bank of America to avoid paying filing fees as well as to ease mortgage transfers. The Texas Legislature approved of MERS’s appearance as a mortgagee in filings in county land records, the defendants said in a filing March 9 in federal court in Dallas.

“No false, fraudulent or otherwise wrongful activity occurred by filing security instruments naming MERS as beneficiary or mortgagee,” MERS and the bank said in their motion to dismiss. “There is no duty to record assignments, or other documents, since Texas’s property recording system is permissive not mandatory.”

[BLOOMBERG]

BLOOMBERG-

Harris County Texas, which includes the city of Houston, won a bid to join a group lawsuit seeking damages from the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Stewart Title Co.

U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor allowed Harris and nearby Brazoria County (66583MF) to enter the case that could result in payouts of a much as $10 billion for all Texas counties, according to court papers filed by the plaintiffs.

[BLOOMBERG]

HERALD NEWS-

The Bristol County Board of Commissioners moved on Tuesday to file a lawsuit to reclaim millions of dollars from Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, commonly known as MERS, for allegedly skirting public recording laws at the expense of the county’s three property registries.

Commissioner John Mitchell said Bristol County is joining with Norfolk and Plymouth counties in filing lawsuits against MERS.

“MERS has hidden all the assignment of mortgages,” Mitchell said. “This (lawsuit) is to get fees back for the recording of assignments of mortgages. You don’t know how many times they did it. They did it privately. Supposedly, somewhere, this MERS has a registry of their own assignments of mortgages which show who is the true owner of a mortgage, except I guess in practice they don’t really have it. And that’s been a problem with foreclosures. When a bankruptcy court says, ‘Who owns the mortgage now?,’ they haven’t always been able to come up with it.”

Mitchell said it has been a “substantial” problem, but the county won’t be sure about how much money they are actually looking to collect until the discovery process of litigation — rough estimates put together by county registries last year indicate that the loss of revenue ranges well into the millions of dollars.

[HERALD NEWS]

Think about why MERS would want this case moved? Do they have a connection there? hmmm

National Mortgage News-

A federal judicial panel denied a motion to include the Dallas County district attorney’s lawsuit against Merscorp in the ongoing multidistrict litigation against the private loan registry in Phoenix.

In its motion, Merscorp, the Reston, Va.-based parent company of the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, argued the claims in the Dallas County case are common with the other MDL cases and meet the panel’s requirements that consolidation would promote the convenience and “just and efficient conduct of the action.” But the judicial panel ruled there are important distinctions between the MDL and Dallas County cases.

“Most importantly, all existing MDL actions were brought by homeowners or borrowers who brought suit concerning their impending or completed foreclosure. In contrast, Dallas County involves the propriety of the MERS system’s failure to pay recordation fees under Texas’s recording statutes,” the judges’ order reads.

[NATIONAL MORTGAGE NEWS]

Not could, SHOULD!

Caller-

Nueces County could join a group of Texas counties suing Bank of America and a related corporation over unpaid courthouse filing fees.

Nationwide, counties are claiming that a mortgage database created by banks is cheating the counties out of billions of dollars in filing fees.

Dallas County is leading the charge with a class-action suit against the bank and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins told NPR his county has lost about $100 billion in filing fees.

[CALLER]

We know for a fact and the government knows for a fact that if MERS is on your documents, a cloud also exists.

Their “quick fix” might come as simple as accepting a modification, principal reduction or a refi, to cover this all up and creating new paper.

If any of your new docs have MERS or a like, what have you done again?

Statesman-

The ownership of tens of thousands of Central Texas home loans could be in question because of the actions of a national private registry that officials say has sidestepped the filing of proper documents with county clerks, the American-Statesman has learned.

The Mortgage Electronic Registration System was created in the 1990s by 3,000 of the nation’s largest lenders to “streamline the mortgage sale process by using e-commerce to replace paperwork,” according to the company’s website.

In recent years, the Virginia-based registry has exploded across the U.S. as mortgages increasingly were bundled and sold as commodities in rapid churn to investors.

[STATESMAN]

Here’s exactly where the issue always was, Counties are being cheated from their cut and in return schools, government agencies and tax payers suffer. This was nothing more than a wall street “self stimulus”, “bailout” from the get go.

What Universal Law exist permitting MERS? A self made Wall Street Law.

Besides this all, MERS can’t even keep track of who owns what. MERS is not a nominee and not a beneficiary because it never loaned One Cent.

KTSM-

EL PASO – Between record home foreclosures and devastating budget cuts, El Paso County has seen a rough couple of years recently. We usually think of these crises as separate, but some argue there’s a common link between these challenges, that lies with a company known as Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS.

El Paso County is in a foreclosure crisis. According to the real estate information company, CoreLogic, more than 5,000 homes have gone into foreclosure since the recession began in late 2007.

Attorney Richard Roman has represented dozens of homeowners in foreclosure cases; he argues the real problem is MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems).

[KTSM]

Oh my, this is getting very interesting. Now who is going to pay for MERS’ attorney fees? Oops there isn’t anyone. Where will the Counties get the money they claim? The lenders? Shareholders?

We’re talking in excess of Billions and Billions if every state files one of these for every county. This is going to get interesting very quick.

Dallas News-

The Dallas County District Attorney’s office said Tuesday in a press release that it expanded its lawsuit against the Mortgage Electronic Registration System and its parent company to a class action lawsuit that includes other counties.

It was not clear Tuesday afternoon which other counties were involved.

[DALLAS NEWS]

It’s quite easy because most information is already on this site.

It’s so simple and no tax dollars will go to waste…. Trust me.

Bloomberg-

The Texas county that includes Houston will ask the state attorney general to investigate suing Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. over unpaid filing fees on behalf of all the counties in Texas, an official said.

“If this is something that affects county government all over the state, why isn’t the state attorney general pursuing it?” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said in an interview today. Emmett is a member of the Harris County Commissioners Court and the highest elected official of the county.

[BLOOMBERG]

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
LOUISVILLE DIVISION

CHRISTIAN COUNTY CLERK, by and through
its County Clerk, MICHAEL KEM;
WASHINGTON COUNTY CLERK, by and through
its County Clerk, GLENN BLACK; on behalf
of themselves and all others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs

v.

MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS
INC.; MERSCORP, INC,; BANK OF AMERICA, N.A.;
CCO MORTGAGE CORPORATION; CITIMORTGAGE, INC;
CORINTHIAN MORTGAGE COMPANY;
EVERHOME MORTGAGE COMPANY; GMAC RESIDENTIAL FUNDING CORPORATION;
GUARANTY BANK; HSBC FINANCE CORPORATION;
MERRILL LYNCH CREDIT CORPORATION;
NATIONWIDE ADVANTAGE MORTGAGE COMPANY;
SUNTRUST MORTGAGE, INC.;JPMORGAN
CHASE & CO.; WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.; AND
WMC MORTGAGE CORPORATION,

Defendants

[ipaper docId=70276713 access_key=key-1ltvdkngodowjj0xtcpg height=600 width=600 /]

“MERS has jeopardized the clear title of every Texas homeowner with a mortgage and has cheated Texas counties out of millions of dollars in property recording fees,”

– County Attorney Vince Ryan

My San Antonio-

Bexar County is poised to challenge a private mortgage-tracking system that officials claim has cost it millions of dollars in filing fees.

The district attorney’s office will ask the Commissioners Court at its Nov. 1 meeting for the go-ahead to hire a law firm to sue Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc., which claims to hold title to some 60 million loans around the country.

[MY SAN ANTONIO]

MyFoxHouston-

HOUSTON – It was a simpler time when Edward Mahar bought his home in 1980. He has lived there ever since in southwest Houston.

“It was procedurally easy and we had a Realtor involved and basically the process was getting bank approval to buy the property,” says Mahar.

There were no mortgage swaps or complex transactions in the financial market that could leave your head spinning as is the case currently. For years, he knew exactly who held the note on his property.

“Since two years ago, everything is complicated,” says Mahar.

In case anyone hasn’t noticed but lately there is a PR move supporting MERS…but those moves will not help once every county in the US wakes up and begins to sue the machine.

Bloomberg-

Attorneys for the Texas county that includes Houston will seek permission Tuesday to hire outside counsel to sue Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. over unpaid mortgage-filing fees.

The plan was posted today on the agenda for the Harris County Commissioners Court, the governing body for the county. County attorneys will hire the same law firm, Malouf & Nockels, that handled a similar lawsuit filed by Dallas last month, County Attorney Vince Ryan said in an interview today.

The Dallas County District Attorney’s lawsuit claimed Merscorp Inc.’s MERS, which runs an electronic registry of mortgages, cheated the county out of tens of millions of dollars in uncollected filing fees. MERS tracks servicing rights and ownership interests …

[BLOOMBERG]

Again, this is what I’ve been waiting for. As Professor Peterson says, “This case is scary because if Dallas wins then there are a lot of other counties around the country that are going to follow.” … And follow they will.

I already see them lining up one by one. You see just because you can develop a system and input data, doesn’t mean it relieves you from any responsibility of some 67+ million “errors”. They knew what they had from its inception.

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.

[BLOOMBERG]

Listen up carefully because this is what we’ve been waiting for. Only wished all shareholders were named but it’s all about strategy and taking one bite at a time!

I have posted about this doctrine HERE and HERE in hopes someone would pick up on this.

Abigail C. Field-

Dallas County has just filed this complaint seeking billions from Bank of America for the 285,000+ MERS documents recorded in the the Dallas County land records. Dallas calls MERS a fraud by design, and says MERS’s shareholders should be liable for MERS has done.

The complaint explains that in recorded mortgages and other documents, MERS claims to be a “beneficiary”, “mortgagee” and “grantee”, but that MERS is none of those things under the law of Texas for the past 100 years. As a result, the complaint says, all those documents are false. Texas law prohibits using a document with the “knowledge that the document is a fraudulent court record or fraudulent lien or claim against real…property or an interest in real…property”

[REALITY CHECK]

image: mooncostumes

DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS,
PLAINTIFF,

vs.

MERSCORP, INC.; MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC
REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC.; STEWART TITLE
GUARANTY COMPANY; STEWART TITLE
COMPANY; BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION; AND ASPIRE FINANCIAL, INC.
D/B/A TEXASLENDING.COM,
DEFENDANTS

EXCERPTS:

III.
AGENCY AND CORPORATE VEIL/ALTER-EGO
10. At all times material hereto, each Defendant was acting by and through its actual,
apparent, ostensible, or by estoppel agents and/or employees.

11. Plaintiff moves the Court pierce the MERSCORP and MERS corporate veils and
impose liability upon Defendants Stewart and BOA as shareholders in MERSCORP for the
activities of MERSCORP and MERS alleged herein. Recognizing the corporate existence of
MERSCORP and MERS separate from their shareholders, including Stewart and BOA, would
cause an inequitable result or injustice, or would be a cloak for fraud or illegality. MERSCORP
and MERS were undercapitalized in light of the nature and risk of their business. The corporate
fiction is being used to justify wrongs, as a means of perpetrating fraud, as a mere tool or
business conduit for others, as a means of evading existing legal obligations, to perpetrate
monopoly and unlawfully gain monopolistic control over the real property recording system in
the State of Texas, and to circumvent statutory obligations.

[…]

[ipaper docId=65706643 access_key=key-27u85ehk2tb3tgsqsseg height=600 width=600 /]

There could be $50-$100 MILLION in unfiled fees due to Dallas County!

PegususNews-

In an interview with Dallas South News, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins says he plans to file a lawsuit against a company representing organizations who he says owes the county millions of dollars.

A group of private attorneys is working with the county on a claim against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) who they say has avoided paying county fees. The suit will be filed in Dallas County District Court sometime next week.

[PEGUSUS NEWS]

Anyone catches the complaint please send. Thank you.

MERS was “PLANNED OUT” and it’s now blowing up in their fraudster faces. It was created in order to hide the fraud they all conspired to keep private (members only) and from the public. This is a veil that needs a good piercing…if any judge would allow.

In re: Agard–

“This court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50 percent of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.”

WAPO-

Massachusetts clearly is not backing down!

Berkshire Eagle–

A Virginia-based mortgage registry business mired in the nation’s housing foreclosure investigation has apparently “stiffed” the three Berkshire Registry of Deeds offices of nearly $2 million in recording fees for more than a decade, local registry officials have claimed.

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. of Reston, Va. failed to pay an estimated $1.18 million to the Middle District Registry of Deeds in Pittsfield from June 1999 through July of this year, according to Register of Deeds Andrea F. Nuciforo Jr. In addition, Nuciforo’s staff has calculated that the Southern and Northern District registries in North Adams and Great Barrington respectively are owed a collective $775,000 during the same 12-year period.

The $75 state-mandated fee in question is for each time a home mortgage is sold or swapped — known as an assignment — to another lending institution after it has been initially recorded in the appropriate registry. The money collected goes into the state’s general revenue fund.

[BERSHIRE EAGLE]

Dallas South News-

Today Dallas County District Attorney (DA) Craig Watkins announced that the DA’s office is considering asserting claims against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) for the possible loss of millions in revenues to Dallas County.

MERS, a subsidiary of MERSCORP, Inc., was established and is owned by banks and members of the mortgage finance industry.  MERS was established to act as a shadow recording system for the millions of mortgages in the United States and facilitate the buying and selling of mortgage rights as commodities.

[DALLAS SOUTH NEWS]

The Case Against Allowing Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) to Initiate Foreclosure Proceedings

Nolan Robinson
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

March 21, 2011

Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 32, No. 4, p. 101, 2011

Abstract:
Few American homeowners know much about the small, Virginia-based company that has revolutionized the mortgage industry over the past fifteen years. Yet, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) is the named mortgagee on nearly two-thirds of all newly originated residential mortgages in the United States. Industry leaders – including Freddy Mac, Ginnie Mae, and a host of private lenders – created MERS in the mid-1990s to help facilitate a burgeoning market in mortgage-backed securities.

At the time MERS was created, a robust and lightly regulated secondary market for mortgage-backed securities seemed like a good idea. The recent subprime mortgage crisis, which has impacted millions of American homeowners and played a key role in a global recession, has done much to challenge that presumption. One unfortunate byproduct of the subprime mortgage crisis has been a dramatic increase in the number of American homeowners facing foreclosure. For many of these homeowners, the MERS system may compound their hardships by effectively masking the identity of the owner of their loans. One of the benefits of MERS membership, according to MERS, is the legal right to foreclose on a defaulting homeowner in MERS’s name rather than in the name of the entity who actually owns the mortgage. This can mean that homeowners have no way of ascertaining the identity of the party with whom they can negotiate their loans.

Several state courts have considered challenges to MERS’s right to initiate foreclosure actions in its own name. MERS claims to have the legal authority to initiate foreclosure proceedings throughout the United States, but not every court has agreed. Some jurisdictions have expressly upheld MERS’s right to foreclose, while some have questioned or limited MERS’s foreclosure rights. Still other courts have reserved judgment, expressing frustration and confusion regarding MERS’s role in an increasing number of foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings, and the ostensible connection between MERS and the subprime mortgage crisis.

MERS is currently a plaintiff in as many as forty percent of pending foreclosure actions in some locales. This Note argues that foreclosure actions brought in MERS’s name, without joining the real party in interest, are unlawful. Furthermore, this Note reveals how granting standing to MERS in foreclosure actions threatens to undermine the protections for homeowners that foreclosure law has traditionally provided, and violates important property law doctrines that ensure the proper functioning of the recording system and minimize clouds on title.

[ipaper docId=52761486 access_key=key-qwfrgu8jq9r5bqew71p height=600 width=600 /]