[Vision2020] Hookers on parade again

[Art Deco]

   <http://www.spokesman.com/> February 4, 2012
Banks sued over electronic mortgage registry
Michael Gormley
Associated Press
   The complaint

MERS was set up by banks to rapidly package and sell mortgages as
securities without recording each transaction in county records offices.
Complaints allege among other things that homeowners have trouble
responding to foreclosure actions and mortgage inaccuracies because MERS
makes it difficult to find out who owns the mortgages.

ALBANY, N.Y. – New York’s attorney general on Friday accused some of the
nation’s largest banks of deceit and fraud in using an electronic mortgage
registry that he said puts homeowners at a disadvantage in foreclosures
while saving banks over $2 billion.

Democrat Eric Schneiderman sued Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and
Wells Fargo over their use of the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems
Inc., or MERS, claiming the banks submitted court documents containing
false and misleading information that appeared to provide the authority for
foreclosures when there was none.

The lawsuit also names the registry operator, MERSCORP Inc. of Virginia.

Schneiderman claims the MERS system has eliminated homeowners’ ability to
track property transfers through traditional public records. He said the
electronic system now stores that data and is plagued by inaccuracies and
what the lawsuit calls “faulty and sloppy document preparation and
execution practices.”

“The banks created the MERS system as an end-run around the property
recording system, to facilitate the rapid securitization and sale of
mortgages,” Schneiderman said Friday. “Once the mortgages went sour, these
same banks brought foreclosure proceedings en masse based on deceptive and
fraudulent court submissions, seeking to take homes away from people with
little regard for basic legal requirements or the rule of law.”

MERS spokeswoman Janis L. Smith promised to fight the lawsuit. She said the
company complies with all laws and county and state recording regulations.

“Federal and state courts around the country have repeatedly upheld the
MERS business model, and the validity of MERS as legal mortgagee and
nominee for lenders,” she said.

J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America declined comment. There was no
immediate comment from Wells Fargo.

The lawsuit also claims that over several years, “banks rapidly securitized
and sold off millions of loans, often misrepresenting the quality and
nature of the mortgages being transferred.”

-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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