I would like to ask that you read the message below, with a slow eye, until it makes sense. Then read it again.
At the end of the day, M.E.R.S. is not a planet, it is a Corporation, born in Delaware, United States not too long ago. It doesn’t have tentacles, it can’t come out from under your bed at night, it is just a Tax ID number like you and me, staffed by Americans like you and me…. Again, it is just a group of men and women using telephones and computers to try to make a living – it is not a Death Star even though it seems like it – it is the psychology of the naming device. Don’t take the bait (wink). It is just a company.
Are you still with me people? M.E.R.S. is an Organization with people on a payroll paying Federally required taxes, it is a Company, an entity, just a place where people work, hoping to make more in revenue than it costs to produce their goods or services – whatever those may be. They don’t do anything. Personally I think this is fraud and so have spoken up to my Attorney General, Mr. Wassden of Idaho.
Can you imagine telling a jury that as a Corporation, you exist only so that others can claim that you are okay with listing your name to a County Recorders Office, to accept that on a Loan Packet it says you as a Company are okay with another Company listing your Company as a name only to allow….. ad nausiem… No, you are correct, it doesn’t make sense, see my point, there are no goods, there are no services: fraud.
That would be funny, call M.E.R.S. and ask what they do? Then ask what they sell. Record it, I am curious how they would answer.
“Uh hi this is M.E.R.S., can I help you?”
“What do you sell, what are your goods and services and how do I know that I need them, or don’t need them?”
“Uh, we allow you and your loan originator to tell your County Recorders Office, just once, that it’s okay to put our name down so that they can quasi-legally try to sell that which they just Recorded somewhere else in the World and hope they don’t get sued, investigated, or sent to Camp Snoopy as a result.”
“Cool, why would my Loan Originator and I want to buy this right to list your name on a bunch of pieces of important looking paper Sir?”
“Uh, uh, to help you save money on the ‘management’ of the loan, over the life of the loan”….”like the commercial, there is an egg-managment fee, and our fees are cheaper than it would cost your Servicer to record each time they sold that thing they are Recording with our name on it. To be honest, Sir, I am not really sure what we do here, but I have a nice computer and a cool desk and a Herman Miller $2,300 chair that spins around fast and looks neat.”
“What did you just say, something about management of my loan? What? Huh?”
“Yeah well we expect to save your Company $20 – $40 dollars per loan but the future holds no promises. It may be that we actually will be a toxic partner in all this, an accessory, perhaps and then be forced into bankruptcy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory Ironically, costing you your home and your Servicer their home too, meaning, it could be that we help steal your home if we have too but as a result of our existence, we are then forced to give people back their homes, the same homes we never really owned or wanted in the first place. We were just cardboard, we just looked tough… Yeah, I am not really sure what we do here to tell you the truth, Sir,”
As a Corporation, M.E.R.S. must obey laws like Nike, Target, Louis Vuitton, USA, Chevron…. It has to file important documents throughout the year, to officially state how much money was received for allowing its name to be listed on the documents, yawn….
Snoopy just opened the mail and cashed the checks, he didn’t own the loan… does this makes sense? For me MetLife didn’t own the note, they just received my check, made sure the funds were there, distributed to my home City and State for taxes and then made payments TO the Trusts and other parties who had then packaged up the assets in the other Trusts and sold them as something else…… how many times does a fifty dollar bill change hands during its life…. gettin’ it?
Sold and resold and resold and never recording who owned the promise to be paid as it set sailed down the river of shady Fraud Street practices. Just stocks and other shiny things in pretty boxes with fancy ribbons, in Tiffany blue and Wall Street Red (I think I just made up a color)…. Absolute lunacy, unbridled greed is a dangerous beast.
I know what a big Mac looks like but a 10 Piece Chicken-McMortgage with extra sauce, what exactly does that look like? Think a pile of stocks, what does that look like? Its a Certificate with numbers on it and likely not even that anymore, it is an ‘account’ in a system somewhere.
When our loans were aggregated, they became shares which replaced Notes and Deeds, like trading currency for ‘ownership/stock’ in something that claims to have owned what was morphed. Like when the real estate agent turned into the banker who then turned into a wall street thief, who then turned into a securities sales representative in another Country who then was sold on the idea of owning a piece of the American Dream without really having to leave Norway or Sweden – the ultimate in virual experience.
Well, even the best crafted plans ……
So here’s a concept, let’s say that to have the American Dream Theme Park Experience, you have to have the experience in the Park, you cannot barter it abroad – you have to empty your cup here, no roadies. In other words, the note stays with the original investor, hold them to the same standard as the borrow – do not allow them to assign, sell, transfer – period – or AT LEAST NOT WITHOUT YOUR APPROVAL AND NOT WITHOUT PROPER CONTROLS IN PLACE.
Contracts and Notes need to work both ways, for both parties. Power (back) to the People. Gonna stop here, but again, M.E.R.S. is just a business model, Incorported and held to the same laws and standards – no free lunch.
So we are taking a field trip to learn about a ‘shell’ Corporation, established primarily as a ‘front’ to allow the securitization of America’s mortgages to be boxed, wrapped and sold around the World as “very solid investment grade solutions” for these “unstable and unpredictable and ever so sexy market turbulent times”. Think guy with unibrow on the commercial, so serious…. but you get the idea.
Remember all the bonuses the banksters on Fall Street were making just a few years back around the Holidays? So again, think of M.E.R.S. just like a cutout of a big tough guy that the Servicing Companies used to drive along with in their car (your loan). You know, like those “Big Guy” life size rag dolls that were once sold in California so women could feel safe in their cars and others could enter the diamond lane for instant carpool status. You know what I am talking about here, right?
Think of M.E.R.S. as that, just a cutout of a big tough (technology driven system) that was never supposed to be more than a (technology driven system), a deterrent something never meant to be challenged. But if challenged, not to worry, it sounds like MARS, is a technology driven system and therefore all knowing – when we now know that it is not. M.E.R.S doesn’t know anything, it never wanted to know anything, that was the point. It was like the 77 year old security guard at a mall, the big guy with a radio but no gun, a deterrent.
And if it ever was it would shown that really it was just a few people running a business model, making money, trying to follow the laws, and now, likely going to be investigated and sued like the others. I mean when the final data is collected, will M.E.R.S. really have saved the Servicers $20-$40? Maybe they will have cost them $20 – $40 Billion? ? ? We simply don’t know, back to my earlier point. How much is integrity in the market worth? Fund that and let’s get on with it.
A shell company listed in your Original Docs to avoid paying $20-$40 more per loan. A fee paid so to avoid having to do it the old way, the way that worked, the way that was actually designed NOT to be a Casino. The way that worked, the way that was…….. Yes it was boring, repetitive, but it also worked. At the rise of the American prosperity push of the 80s and 90s, banks were not casinos, your home loan in Idaho was not being bought by a small municipality in Finland as an investment grade instrument to protect the village in perpetuity. Our homes had not yet turned into Casino Chips….
Slick Rick from the NYC wasn’t selling your Home’s Note six times around the world, making bonuses, Christmas Cash and Commissions each time. Think gift giving (or selling) and then repackaging and selling again, you get the idea. . . in real estate terms think about the person who sold you your home, the agent, then informing a ‘BIG TIME INVESTOR’ that he/she knows of ten homes/loans that were just transacted and maybe he wants to be the owner of those notes (from behind the curtain). You starting to get it? Becky the Real Estate Agent morphs into Brian the Wall Street mortgage hooker, and in no time, your Note/Deed of Trust has just been super sized like a cow on a train, heading for a processing plant – from New York with love – suckers. Well, the joke is now on them.
Okay, what happens next is interesting and will be addressed in posts to come. From this I want you to know:
1. M.E.R.S. is not larger than you, it is actually not a place, a thing, or a person. It is some documents that were filed in the State of Delaware to allow your loan originator to list this Corporation in the County filings.
For this they take a fee. I am sure their inventory is low and must be a cash rich Company, at least for now. What was their cost of doing business, a $2.93 rubber stamp for the doc packets?
M.E.R.S. did have foresight to write about the possibility of going bankrupt. Yes, they filed an acknowledgement that business comes with certain risks, up to and including bankruptcy… my point is they knew they were operating a Casino…and things don’t always go as planned.
M.E.R.S. is not a software system when used tonight in this context, it is a company just like Vons, Ford, any company usa…..
Okay try this, the real people who own our mortgages don’t exist, I mean ultimately if your ‘Doc Package’ has M.E.R.S. on it, it might as well say MARS. It doesn’t mean anything except that they were involved in allowing your loan to be sold without registration, without a clean paper trail.
Think about this, your loan could be sold tonight, and might just, on an exchange far far away, and if you called MetLife and said “Who do I REALLY owe this promise to pay my $732,990 dollar note to, or ($73,292 note same/same), they would say don’t know, and the reason they won’t know is that what has happened over the past few years was never meant to happen.
We are in new waters… life jackets should be worn at all times. Remember, gills and fins. In my case my abuser, MetLife (FretLife) announced less than stellar earnings over the weekend, so it looks like all this hassel is catching up with them. Their stock is down 15% in as many days and well, like BP, they should put the cameras on themselves and give people back their homes.
Or if you would like, you may think of M.E.R.S as just an idea, and from the looks of things… not a very good one
Goodnight all. Glad I got that off my chest.. . thank you Angels, you know who you are.
City of Trees 11.28.2010 – Trevor Hitchin
________________________________________________________________________
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
LAW REVIEW
Volume 78, No.4 Summer 2010
FORECLOSURE, SUBPRIME MORTGAGE LENDING,
AND THE MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEM
Christopher L. Peterson
……………..The loan is then assigned to a seller for
repackaging through securitization for investors. Instead of recording
the assignment to the seller or the trust that will ultimately own the loan,
however, the originator pays MERS a fee to record an assignment to
MERS in the county records. MERS’s counsel maintains that MERS
becomes a “mortgagee of record” even though its ownership of the
mortgage is fictional. 64
64. R.K. Amold, Yes, There is Life on MERS, 11 PROB. & PROP., July/Aug. 1997, at 32, 34.
Arnold explains:
When a mortgage loan is registered on the MERS System, it receives a mortgage
identification number (MIN). The borrower executes a traditional paper mortgage
naming the lender as mortgagee, and the lender executes an assignment of the mortgage
to MERS. Both documents are executed according to state law and recorded in the public
land records, maldng MERS the mortgagee of record. From that point on, no additional
mortgage assignments will be recorded because MERS will remain the mortgagee of
record throughout the life of the loan.
2010] FORECLOSURES AND MERS 1371
Although MERS records an assignment in the real property records,
the promissory note, which creates the legal obligation to repay the debt,
is not negotiated to MERS.65 Everyone agrees that MERS is never
entitled to receive a borrower’s monthly payments, nor is MERS entitled
to receive the proceeds of a foreclosure or deed of trust sale. MERS has
no actual financial interest in any mortgage loan. MERS does not even
provide lien releases of the mortgages it purports to own, instead
referring title attorneys, refinancing lenders, and consumers to the loan’s
servicer. 66 MERS’s revenue comes not from repayment of the loan or
the disposition of collateral, but from fees that the originator and other
mortgage finance companies pay to MERS. Once a loan is assigned to
MERS, the public land title records no longer reveal who (or what)
actually owns a lien on the property in question.
After a few years in business, MERS decided it could help mortgage
financiers pay even less to county governments by doing away with the
first assignment to MERS, and instead listing MERS as the mortgagee in
the original mortgage. Figure C provides a graphic representation of
sub prime mortgage loan origination where the parties record MERS as
the original mortgagee. Once again, MERS does not actually advance
any loan principal to the homeowner, does not have the right to receive
any payments from the borrower, and is not the actual party in interest in
any foreclosure proceeding. Nevertheless, the actual mortgagee pays a
fee to MERS to induce MERS to record the mortgage in MERS’s name.
By eliminating the reference to an actual mortgagee or the actual
assignee, MERS estimated it would save the originator an average of
$22.00 per loan.
67. MERSCORP, MERS Frequently Asked Questions, http://www.mersinc.orgl
why_mers/faq.aspx (last visisted June 9, 2004) (“[Y]ou’ll save $22 or more per loan when you specifY
MERS as the Original Mortgagee (MOM) of Record in the mortgage or deed of trust.”); Mullen, supra
note 19, at 65 (“The good news for companies embracing the system changes was that using MOM
[MERS as Original Mortgagee], as the practice has come to be known, provides an immediate cost
reduction of approximately $22 per loan.”). Early estimates suggest that the average cost reduction
when MERS acts as an “assignee” were between $15 and $17 a loan. LIPTON, supra note 26, at 2.
More recent estimates suggest that using MERS saves lenders and servicers approximately $40 over the
entire life of a mortgage loan. David F. Borrino, MERS: Ten Years Old, USFN, May 11, 2006,
http://imis.usfu.orglResources/ArticleLibrary/1733.aspx (last visisted July 13,2006).
Once again, MERS does not actually advance
any loan principal to the homeowner, does not have the right to receive
any payments from the borrower, and is not the actual party in interest in
any foreclosure proceeding. Nevertheless, the actual mortgagee pays a
fee to MERS to induce MERS to record the mortgage in MERS’s name.
By eliminating the reference to an actual mortgagee or the actual
assignee, MERS estimated it would save the originator an average of
$22.00 per loan
~
Is MERS an actual physical place or does it lie somewhere in the Twilight Zone? Can we put our finger on it and physically walk into it or is it just a fantasy somewhere out there in cyberspace? I SAY DEATH TO MERS. I say we flood our “elected officials’ UP IN THE HILL with e-mails and phone calls asking them to draw up and pass a legislation to KILL MERS. Then when CONGRESS PASSES THE BILL, and before THE PASSED BILL even reaches President Obama’s desk, we flood whitehouse.gov with e-mails and phone calls ASKING President Obama to PLEASE SIGN THE BILL. Problem solved. MERS GETS THE DEATH PENALTY it so rightly deserves. JUSTICE SERVED.
As I heard it before on some post… who’s the real terrorist here Osama Bin Laden or the USA? All dirty secret plots always see to point to the good old US of A including the invention of “terror” as their middle name. Wake up people, get informed. Knowledge is Power and that’s what is needed to fight back!
And they say Al Queda is trying to kill us? There is a simple solution to this mess. Bring back the Glass-Steagel Act. Otherwise this is what happens: The banks behave badly.The children have been given the keys to the candy store. RE: Foreclosuregate. Wall Street and the banks have become a runaway train within the mortgage industry.
MERS=SECURITIES FRAUD AKA THE RICO ACT. The banks place our signatures NOT A NOTE, in MERS, and then the BANKS passed our mortgages around like a hot potato and made GAGILLIONS of DOLLARS off of our names while the GOVERNMENT KNEW THIS and turned a blind eye to this. The FBI blew the whistle on ALL OF THE FRAUD as early as 2004 and also warned a future ECONOMIC CRISIS would arise because of this. Check out Wikepedia on this. Now what we have here begs for some real ANGER by the people. We have been spit on, chewed up, and spit on somemore and many homeowners have been left homeless without due process. IF WE THE PEOPLE KEEP ALLOWING THIS GOVERNMENT TO LET US BE KILLED, THERE WILL BE NO MORE AMERICA.
To put it plain and simple,MERS is just a device used by the banks to cover up all of their mortgage fraud. This part of the PONZI SCHEME BY THE BANKSTERS AND WALL STREET is a complete failure when it comes to giving the banks the right to claim our property under the name of MERS. Plain and simple MERS rescinds the whole mortgage loan because it breaks contractual law. MERS MAKES THE CONTRACT NO LONGER A LIVE CONTRACT. Banks foreclosing in the name of MERS is a CRIME and we should all be protected from MERS by New York Law. The banks have to perfect the collateral lien in order to fulfill those PSA agreements and guess what ? THE BANKS — USED MERS AND WERE SLOPPY AND SCREWED UP BADLY. This is SECURITIES FRAUD. I THINK THAT IS A FEDERAL OFFENSE.. FORECLOSUREGATE IS SCREAMING for THOUSANDS of FEDERAL INDICTMENTS, TRIALS AND IMPRISONMENTS OF THE CRIMINALS AND THE RETURN OF MILLIONS OF FRAUDCLOSED ON HOMES BACK TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNERS, WALL STREET AND THE BANKS MADE GAGILLIONS OF DOLLARS OFF OF OUR SIGNATURES. NOW, IS SOMEONE GOING TO HAVE THE GUTS TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT HERE FOR MAIN STREET?? OUR GOVERNMENT IS SO FULL OF COWARDS. THAT IS OK, OUR 5TH AMENDMENT RIGHTS DO PROTECT US FROM GOVERNMENT INTRUSION WITHOUT DUE PROCESS AND SOMETHING TELLS ME THEY DO NOT WANT US TO HAVE DUE PROCESS BECA– USE SOMEONE DID NOT DO THEIR DUE DILLIGENCE IN RECORDING TRANSACTIONS MADE IN OUR NAMES PROPERLY. THE U.S. CONSTITUTION PROTECTS THE BANKS FROM’ GOVERNMENT INTRUSION ‘BY THE ‘GOVERNMENT’ . OH WELL WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE GOOSE IS GOOD FOR THE GANDER. GOD BLESS AMERICA!! Send the RESPA QUALIFIED wheres the note? letter to your ‘LENDER’ and don’t sent any more house payments. They made enough money off of you and me and now they are just being GREEDY PIGS.
M.E.R.S. is not a planet. Everyone seems to keep focusing on MERS’ saving the “owners” the repeated county recording fee as their major purpose and intent. HOWEVER. MERS charges its members a hefty fee of a minimum of $25++ EACH TIME A TRANSFER is made. I am not up to date on how that compares with the county’s recording fees, but I think that MERS’ fee is HIGHER. Even if MERS’ fee isn’t greater, its fee still exists and it totally voids the idea that their existence is to save that repeated recording cost. MERS has their own chart of fees, and an owner making any changes pays for each one, although MERS NEVER performs any of the work or data entries! Other services are analyses of the trend in the filings, which is not a service exclusive to MERS.
That being the case, I think it leaves us only with the thought/belief/idea that MERS’ TRUE PURPOSE was to facilitate the frauds that have been perpetrated. That result leaves MERS in a very very precarious state regarding the law.
MERS does not have employees, or revenue. It is a shell wholly owned by Merscorp. Read the Hultman deposition from June. I realize the above post was meant with good intention but it is wholly incorrect. MERS is nothing but the database program. It doesn’t even claim to own the data in the database. Read the Hultman deposition, please! Stop spreading misinformation about this farce. Thanks.