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County could join suit against mortgage registration giant MERS

23.05.12

And, according to neighbourhood pub officials, Charlevoix County will likely join a multifaceted class initiative lawsuit against the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) company.

“They ripped off our county,” said Charlevoix County Index of Deeds Charlene Novotny. “It’s the biggest shyster I’ve seen since I’ve worked here and the administration of the United States of America went along with it.”

According to Novotny, she has turned over many dozens of files she claims bears the signature of Linda Country-like over to the Michigan Attorney General’s office and the Charlevoix County Sheriff. Unripened is the mailroom clerk made famous when it was discovered her name along with the title of “Bank Frailty-president” appeared on hundreds of thousands of fraudulent foreclosure documents across the Cooperative States over the last few years.

The illegal act of mass signing of foreclosure documents, also known as “robo-signing,” continues to irritate register of deeds offices nationwide with the Emmet County registrar’s responsibility recently putting out a warning to be on the lookout for such documents.

“Our office recently uncovered denote of potential fraud and improperly filed property documents related to the nationalistic scandal surrounding so called “robo-signing” by companies such as MERS and DOCx,” stated Emmet County Communicate of Deeds Michele E. Stine. “The Register of Deeds is limited under the law to being the recorder and holder of these records. Our job has no legal authority to investigate or make judgments on any claims on the legality or authenticity of peculiarity documents. Therefore, we have turned these suspicious records over to the Michigan Attorney General, Emmet County Prosecutor and Sheriff, for inquiry.”

The Michigan Court of Appeals had ruled earlier this year that MERS could not girl foreclosure proceedings, but the Michigan Supreme Court ruled on Nov. 16, that MERS indeed has continuing to foreclose on homeowners.

In the case of Residential Funding Corp v Saurman/Bank of New York Faith Company v Messner, the court determined, in a 4-3 vote, where MERS is an holder of interest in the debt as a record holder of mortgages allows MERS to foreclose by puffery.

The lawsuit against MERS and federal mortgagers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is spearheaded by the Ingham County Note of Deeds office in Lansing.

“We’re suing them for not paying millions of dollars in haul taxes in Ingham County – it’s probably in the tens of millions statewide,” said Ingham County Write down of Deeds Curtis Hertel Jr.

According to Hertel, when most people buy a house it is pronto sold to a larger bank which then bundles houses and sells them as securities. There were so many houses being bought and sold that MERS was created to wake trace the transactions. “I would call it a shadow organization – it’s not accessible to the administration or citizens and it avoids fees,” he said. “And then at some point during the housing calamity they decided they would start they would start acting like a bank and actually foreclosed on citizens.”

But, Hertel added, “The pretty pickle is they have 35 million mortgages and 65 employees – how does one being keep track of over 500,000 mortgages? When they started foreclosing they hired 2,000 foreclosure firms around the mother country and made those people vice-presidents so they had the right to transfer property.”

This, Hertel said, is what the court of appeals ruled was interdicted, but has since been reversed by the supreme court.

MERS media spokesman Karmela Lerjarde said the legions of loans MERS has registered is closer to 30 million and has regional offices in Alabama, Massachusetts, Virginia, California and Illinois.

Hertel said some of the problems with the court’s finding to allow MERS to foreclose on people is that there is no governing body, no public true not even the local police, who look over foreclosure documents to ensure they are legitimate.

“There is a lot of bedlam in the process, and a lot of people who are technically in default but who are working on loan modifications with their bank who have baffled their homes because MERS foreclosed on them,” he said. “The other thing is MERS is imagined to keep track of documents but they either have not created them or they were lost or stolen and there are cases where they actually faked signatures on documents to belt along up the foreclosure process.”

MERS was incorporated in 1995 and began registering and tracking mortgage loans in 1997. Since then it has registered more than 70 million loans.

MERS becomes a mortgagee in two ways.

During closing the borrower and lender both concur to standard language in the security instrument making MERS the original mortgagee, with the rational to act on behalf of the lender or a lender can assign the mortgage to MERS following closing.

Hertel added, “There are thousands of documents in Michigan alone that have Linda Green’s forged signature.”

“We need the Michigan legislature to look at the system and interchange the foreclosure process,” Hertel said. “It would be more expensive to do foreclosures by judiciary but in the large run it would save money.”

He added, “For every house that goes into foreclosure on your piece, it lowers your home’s value.”

Hertel’s case against Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is currently in federal court; the hold case against MERS was filed in the last couple weeks.

Michigan 37th District Senator Howard Walker said this culmination will best be decided by the courts.

“It may be easier to start a foreclosure proceeding through bill, but we do have a lot of consumer protections in place,” he said. “I don’t have a fix on it.”

District 1 Congressman from Michigan Dan Benishek’s press secretary Kyle Bonini gave the following affirmation on the matter: “Congressman Benishek understands the concerns of local governments and the appetite of Michigan families facing foreclosure and dealing with an entity such as MERS in court without having had any previous to dealings. Dr. Benishek sees reviving the housing industry as one of his top priorities, as he believes this sector will be key to trade recovery. At the same time, the Congressman believes MERS’ business warm-up is of national concern and will continue to work with his colleagues in the House Financial Services Board to ensure a growing and prosperous housing market.”

In a statement from MERSCORP Badness-President of Corporate Communications Janis L. Smith, she states MERS will behind itself against the allegations.

“The case lacks merit. MERS’ business exemplar adheres to laws, county statutes and mortgage regulations, and has been upheld by federal and hold courts in Michigan and around the country,” Smith stated. “The MERS System has been a juridical and efficient way for the mortgage industry to register and track loan servicing and beneficial ownership interests for over a decade, but no resources transfers ever take place on the system.”

“We have over a hundred open cases of foreclosure fraud against banks – some of them people were working on mortgage modification and had the rug pulled out from under them,” Hertel said. “I had someone who made all their payments in the modification and still were foreclosed on. We absolutely got them to cancel the eviction and get the house back but not before the sheriff sale happened and his credit has been destroyed and he had to detail to his wife and kids they were losing their house.”

He added, “This is the type of article we’re seeing across the state. That is the extreme, but if it can happen then it means we have a broken system.”

Hertel said the urge to foreclose is not incidental.

“You would think giving people modifications seems reasonable but under the present-day bailout, loans insured by Frannie and Freddie get paid in full for default,” Hertel said. “A stage straight of foreclosure is set for each bank and banks can be punished for moving too slow.”

He added, “They yen foreclosures to happen because they make more money – it’s a messy job.”

Some register of deeds offices are beginning to collect the transfer tax.

Maura Snabes, Underwriting Direction and Vice president of Corporate Settlement Solutions of Charlevoix (formerly Corporate Documentation of ownership) said the transfer tax issue varies from county to county.

“We’ve been dealing with this dispute with Freddie and Fannie – they have been stating they are exempt on conveyances, but something has been handed down that says ‘no’ they are not exempt from taxes in that politesse,” she said. “I think it may be declared that MERS also falls under that guideline.”

On Oct. 4, the Michigan Count on of Treasury issued an opinion to the Emmet Country Treasurer stating that Freddie and Fannie must pay magnificence and county transfer taxes since they are excise taxes and not taxes on real peculiarity.

The tax works out to $110 of county transfer tax and $750 of state transfer tax per $100,000 of assets sold.

Snabes said as a precaution her company is checking with individual poll of deeds offices to see if they are mandating MERS pay the transfer tax before closing.

While Novotny is still manipulative the total transfer taxes allegedly owed to the state and county for 2009 and 2010, she has arrived at figures for some transactions.

2009 brilliance transfer tax would be $18,818.75 and county transfer tax would be $2,719.95 she claims MERS owes.

2010 taxes, if it is unflinching MERS must pay, would be $29,943.45 for state and $5,561.55 for the county.

Source: The Boyne City Gazette

Michigan Mortgage Rates at 4.17%

23.05.12

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Source: TheStreet.com