Attorney General Conway Files Suit Against “MERS” In Foreclosure Investigation
Attorney General Jack Conway announced that his office filed a lawsuit today in Franklin Circuit Court against MERSCORP Holdings, Inc., and its wholly owned subsidiary Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) for violations of Kentucky law. The lawsuit is a result of General Conway’s investigation of mortgage foreclosure issues in Kentucky.
The lawsuit alleges that MERS violated Kentucky law by not recording mortgage assignments with County Clerks when mortgages were sold or transferred from one bank to another. By law, mortgage assignments must be recorded in the appropriate County Clerk’s office and a $12 fee is collected by the clerks on behalf of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
“Kentucky’s statute is clear. It requires assignments be recorded with County Clerks, and MERS directly violated that law by creating this system that provides no public record of sales or transactions and deliberately circumvents paying recording fees to states,” General Conway said. “The process makes it difficult for consumers to access data to find out who owns their loans, and the Commonwealth is ripped off when it comes to recording fees.”
MERS was created in 1995 to enable the mortgage industry to avoid state recording fees, allow for the rapid sale and securitization of mortgages, and shorten the time it takes to pursue foreclosure actions. Its corporate shareholders include, among others, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Currently more than 6,500 MERS members pay for access to the private system. More than 70 million mortgages have been registered on the system. The lawsuit alleges that since MERS’ creation in 1995, members have avoided paying more than $2 billion in recording fees nationwide.
Hundreds of thousands of Kentucky loans are registered in the MERS system. As a result of not publicly recording the mortgage assignments and paying the required fees, the lawsuit alleges that MERS violated Kentucky’s Consumer Protection Act by committing unfair, false, misleading or deceptive conduct. Under Kentucky law, MERS could be fined up to $2,000 for every violation.
“This process undermines the integrity of Kentucky’s public land records,” General Conway said. “Before the bottom fell out of the housing market, banks were bundling and selling loans on the securities market as fast as the ink could dry on the paperwork. When homeowners had trouble paying their mortgages during the economic downturn, they struggled to find out who owned their loans. It made it difficult to find out who to call to request a loan modification or to defend the foreclosure. There is and was no public record of the transfers.”
In addition, the lawsuit makes civil claims that MERS created this system to unjustly enrich and pad its bottom line at the expense of consumers and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. To view a copy of the complaint visit http://goo.gl/IqkxA.
Other states have filed similar lawsuits against MERS, including Massachusetts, Delaware and New York.
“I commend Attorney General Conway for taking action against MERS,” New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said. “The banks created this system as an end-run around the public property system and state recording fees. In Kentucky, New York, and across the country, these actions have left financially troubled homeowners in the dark about who owns their mortgages, making the difficult process of negotiating a modification or fighting a foreclosure action even harder. Attorney General Conway’s lawsuit is an important step towards accountability for these abusive practices.”
Attorney General Schneiderman and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan chair the President’s mortgage fraud task force, which President Obama convened a year ago to build on the work of the mortgage foreclosure settlement.
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Bravo to Kentucky and AG Conway! I think he lays it out beautifully here, and especially for people (media) who do not understand the intricacies about this fraud/scam. If you know someone who needs to hear a concise and clear explanation of what most of us following this site already know, please forward this. He gave a very clear and easy to understand synopsis for the media in the roof who he acknowledged may have a hard time reporting on this. The more who know and understand that this was not caused by a bunch of ‘deadbeat homeowners’, or as he says, that the economy did not ‘just blow up’…the better for all of us.
meant to say “media in the room” 🙂
Transparancie is great but 2000 to turn someones life upside down and homeowners $till have too much to deal with, hopefully MERS will fall somehow and all that have been damaged all arcoss the nation will get somethign in making them whole again but then we are just wishing here, the theives will continue to rip from too many and most AGs will not do what this person is doing but it goes Much deeper than 12 buck a home so again the people loose. Would love to see somethign really happen for the damaged people as many have just given up. Good for Kentucky… a great step. Yes COMPLICATED BY DESIGN