The New York Attorney General is suing over MERS 
This is exciting and very relevant to what I do. But … I guess it’s pretty boring to everybody else.
This lawsuit might as well be a one-act play entitled “Why Barney Frank Is Retiring”. Alternate titles include “Why Chris Dodd and Barney Frank Should Never Have Been Trusted With FinReg” and “Because County Registrars Have THEIR Shit Together?”
I wonder how much money local governments are losing???? That’s a butt ton of recording fees.
Skimping on the recording fees is the primary point of MERS. It is essentially a tax dodge. On one hand, a MERS-style national database is a lot more practical than the county-level records that frequently aren’t available through any form other than physically showing up at the recorder’s office. If MERS information was accurate and publicly accessible, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But … the information in MERS isn’t publicly available. Yes, they let you figure out who the mortgage servicer on a particular parcel is—but the public can’t access who actually owns the mortgage on a property.
In some cases, you might get a letter threatening to foreclose on your home and have no idea whether the person threatening to foreclose has any claim to the title. Prior to MERS, you could simply call the local recording office. But now the megabanks like to keep their secrets close. There are legal mechanisms to sort out who owns the mortgage—but if get a letter demanding a massive payment in thirty days or so, you might not be able to get that information quickly enough to help.
I don’t mind if the banks want to avoid taxes, so long as the follow the rules. But their demands of strict performance from borrowers coupled with a cavalier attitude toward both the laws binding them and the legal rights of borrowers makes me feel awfully litigious.
