“MERS Corp Lacks Right”, Says Judge

Inquiring minds are watching the loses pile up for the beleaguered MERS Corp. We at SurvivingCalifornia.com have been writing on this for quite some time now and people are beginning to believe that this is an incredible problem.

Now a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge in New York has stated that MERS has no right to transfer mortgages:

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Grossman in Central Islip, New York, in a decision he said he knew would have a “significant impact,” wrote that the membership rules of the company’s Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, don’t make it an agent of the banks that own the mortgages.

“MERS’s theory that it can act as a ‘common agent’ for undisclosed principals is not supported by the law,” Grossman wrote in a Feb. 10 opinion. “MERS did not have authority, as ‘nominee’ or agent, to assign the mortgage absent a showing that it was given specific written directions by its principal.”

Merscorp was created in 1995 to improve servicing after county offices couldn’t deal with the flood of mortgage transfers, Karmela Lejarde, a spokeswoman for MERS, said in an interview last year. The company tracks servicing rights and ownership interests in mortgage loans on its electronic registry, allowing banks to buy and sell the loans without having to record the transfer with the county. It played a major role in Wall Street’s ability to quickly bundle mortgages together in securitized trusts.

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As for previous stories on SurvivingCalifornia.com, please see:

10 Reasons Why MERS Problem Can’t be Fixed by Legislation
The F-Bomb
More on Mortgage Mess
Man vs. Bank
Follow-up to Utah’s “Man vs. Bank”