I’ve been a consistent critic of MERS, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems. I consider incredible that the mortgage industry could set up this monstrosity which was in violation of state laws across the nation without trying to get some legislation from somebody somewhere to at least give it some iota of legality. Instead they just adopted it with an ethical sense very similar to listing your five grey tabby cats as children on your income tax. As far as I’m concerned, MERS is a semi-sorta legal device used to evade paying state registration fees and avoiding the basic work of transferring title by paper and all this so that these mortgages could be used as chips in global speculation.

This is an excellent brief discussion of MERS and the court system in Michigan.

James Pilant

In my introduction to MERS post, I indicated that a lot of litigation revolved around whether the Michigan Electronic Registration System (MERS) has standing as a party.  On April 21, 2011, the Michigan Court of Appeals decided that it did not in Residential Funding Co v Saurman.  The court said that MERS is not a party with an interest in the mortgage and cannot foreclose by advertisement.  MERS, as mortgagee, only holds an interest in the prope … Read More

via Great Lakes Law Blog