Tweet
Last March, Patricia Arango signed an assignment of mortgage over to Country Wide Home Servicing, LP as "Assistant Secretary" of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Incorporated (MERS) as nominee for Countrywide Bank, FSB. "Assistant Secretary" is meant in the sense of the Secretary of the corporation, a corporate officer, not in the sense of someone who does they typing, phones and filing.
You can see the entire document here [PDF].
Last October, Caryn Graham signed an assignment of mortgage over to The Bank of New York Mellon FKA Bank of New York, as Trustee for the certificate holders CWMBS Series 2006-HYB5, as “Assistant Secretary” of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Incorporated (MERS) as nominee for HomeAmercian Mortgage Corporation.
You can see the entire document here [PDF].
However, neither Ms. Graham nor Ms. Arango are employees of MERS. They are lawyers at the law firm which filed these assignments. You can see their names on the law firm’s website . And you can see the name of the firm, Law Office of Marshall C. Watson in the top left hand corner of the documents at the links. You can’t miss it there is an arrow pointing to the name and address of the firm with instructions to “record and return to” the law office.
A query to the MERS confirmed that neither Ms. Graham nor Ms. Arango are employees of MERS. According to MERS spokesperson Karmela Lejarde:
Caryn A. Graham and Patricia Arango are duly authorized officers of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. This authorization is obtained through a Corporate Resolution that is granted by our Corporate Secretary and approved by the MERS Board of Directors. These individuals are not employees of MERS. [emphasis added]
For complete image click here [PDF].
So MERS has created a system, where people who are not employed by MERS and do not work at MERS are nonetheless designated as "officers" of MERS and are signing documents which are presented in court in the course of foreclosures and judges are innocently relying on these documents, falsely believing them to represent arms length transactions entered into by people with actual knowledge of the status to the mortgage file.
Don’t for a minute think these are the only two such documents or that this is the only law firm involved.
MERS must realize that this does not look very good because they have suddenly decided that hereafter certifying officers (those non–employee signers) must take a training program before being authorized to sign.
In his law firm’s blog Mather Weidener suspects that the “training” will consist of “making sure they don’t tell the truth in a deposition like Cheryl Sammons did (No I don’t read the documents before I sign them).” Read her whole transcript here [PDF]; your eyeballs will fall out of your head.
[Earlier posts in this series and related links at Kouril's Foreclosure Fraud Resources]
9 Comments
Thanks for the heads up!
This scam just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
They should just make a RICO suit out of the entire shebang.
x2
The important thing is for homeowners to know that they have legitimate defenses in foreclosure.
When the banks decided not to use the county cler/land office registry system, they took upon themsleves the risk that they might not have perfected title.
If a bank is looking at the prospect of not being able to foreclose on your house, ever, they are much more likely to negotiate with you in good faith on a modification.
Up until now, although there have been some modifications, one could hardly be impresses that the banks have been evidencing much good faith in the process.
A good sharp reality check, may make them more reasonablee in negotiations
That’s my favorite part, Cynthia. And it responds to the person on your other post today who said if you didn’t pay you’ll be foreclosed upon anyway.
I don’t think so, if you raise this defense effectively. If nobody has the right to foreclose, then there will (should) be no foreclosure.
I’m a little rusty in civil procedure; any obvious flaws in that logic?
Upon further research:
Ah, so this is the earlier post.
And I see you already responded to oldgold on the other thread.
Thanks, Cynthia. Keep ‘em comin!’
Is MERS part of a government agency?
Or is it a “self regulating” industry group?
And if they are self regulating, are judges taking their them at their word as independent experts? If they are I’m seeing all kinds of conflicts of interest
MERS: http://www.mersinc.org/
Interesting URL. MERS INC.org. A non-profit for profit?
MERs is not a government agency. It is an industry group. And it is less than self regulating. It allows members to do just about everything. It’s more like a passive ISP provider with the members being the content provider