Who is Mortgage Electronic Systems?

Mortgage Electronic Systems

If you've ever read the foreclosure notices in the paper you undoubtedly have noticed the name Mortgage Electronic Systems mentioned quite frequently. In case your wondering just who that is read on...

MERS or Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems was created back in the 1990's by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and a consortium of large banks for the sole purpose of transferring notes amongst themselves. This saved the member firms millions of dollars in Registry fees.

As of recent MERS has been under attack for many reasons. One being that some Registry's feel they are owed the money for the recordings that didn't take place as they should. In Massachusetts only that number can be as high as $200 Million dollars according to a recent article in the Banker and Tradesman. The State Attorney general is currently looking into this matter.

Another issue has been the foreclosure process itself. Defense attorneys have argued that by not recording the deeds in the chain of title the foreclosures conducted may have not been done properly. In a similar situation, and a Landmark case in Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld a Land Court judges' decision in "US Bank vs. Ibanez" invalidating the sales of two plaintiff banks in which the mortgages had been improperly assigned.

Mortgage Electronic Systems has previously stated that "they are in compliance with the statuary intent of recording acts in Massachusetts"

It's been estimated that more than 50% of all mortgages registered in the US are done so through the MERS system. So now you know just who is Mortgage Electronic Systems.