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Recently an article in the NYT explained that a company, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), had been created to simplify the selling of mortgages between banks. The process was so streamlined that mortgaged property was no longer registered with county clerks. The process was streamlined to avoid tracing the banks who held and sold the mortgages. The process ignored the mortgagee, the poor fool who was required to pay and would be unable to ever renegotiate the loan*.

We have, for most of our history, registered property ownership with the local government. This procedure protected all parties involved, the seller who lost liability based upon the property, the buyer who could be assured ownership of the property, and the local government who could base taxes upon landownership.

MERS violates the rights of everyone except the huge bank trading in mortgages. I disagree with the New York Times. This process maybe controversial, but it only appears “legal”. How can MERS be legal if it is based upon a law or ruling that violates the rights of two thirds of the legal participants in the transaction? The huge banks are attempting to scam the American people.

I believe, along with most Americans, that one should be responsible for their own actions. The banks contrived this plot, so they, and not the homeowner, should suffer the consequences. Our government must stand up and announce that if the legal title has been manipulated by the banks and MERS, they must lose all claim to the property.

* Excerpts from NYT article.   “Although the average person has never heard of it, MERS — short for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems — holds 60 million mortgages on American homes, through a legal maneuver that has saved banks more than $1 billion over the last decade but made life maddeningly difficult for some troubled homeowners”.

Created by lenders seeking to save millions of dollars on paperwork and public recording fees

every time a loan changes hands, MERS is a confidential

computer registry for trading mortgage loans. From an office in the Washington suburbs, it played an integral, if unsung, role in the proliferation of mortgage-backed securities that fueled the housing boom. But with the collapse of the housing market, the name of MERS has been popping up on foreclosure notices and on court dockets across the country, raising many questions about the way this controversial but legal process obscures the tortuous paths of mortgage ownership.