Borrowers who may have been affected by improper foreclosures will be able to access up to $60,000 worth of legal aid if they live in Ingham County, Michigan[1]. The county board of commissioners approved the monies after Ingham County register of deeds, Curtis Hertel, found documents in his office that called hundreds of foreclosures in the area into question. In fact, Hertel found a total of 500 problematic foreclosures: 400 with possible fraudulent MERS documentation and 100 with possible DocX fraudulent documentation. DocX is a division of Lender Processing Services. Michigan’s state court of appeals ruled in April 2011 that MERS must pursue foreclosure through the courts even though the state has a non-judicial option. In his ruling, the judge stated that MERS documentation was simply too unreliable to be used without the additional judicial process.
Hertel’s office has already started contacting homeowners that he believes have been impacted by the potentially fraudulent foreclosure documentation. “In all honesty, this [contacting the homeowners] is not just right for the people, it is right for the taxpayers,” he said. Hertel hopes that his efforts will “force banks and lenders to the table to work out a new deal on the mortgage to keep the homeowner in their home.” The commissioners praised Hertel, with one calling his efforts “like a miracle.”
Do you think that local governments should be pro-actively involved in identifying and fighting MERS and other loan servicers?
[1] http://www.housingwire.com/2011/06/08/michigan-county-approves-funding-to-help-homeowners-fight-mers-docx-cases
MERS has become the biggest real estate scam of this century. They have unlawfully become beneficiaries of millions of deeds of trust and assigned them on to other straw companies only to end up unlawfully foreclosing and detaining millions of homes throughout the United States. If this is your case file a criminal complaint for fraud with the OCC, the FBI, and the Attorney General in your State asap.
Of course the state should help with foreclosures, it is our money! We get very little for all the taxes we pay, it is the least they can do. And who cares about these crooked banks. They have committed outright fraud there has not been one criminal charge against the forgery factories or any of the architects of the present system that skirted laws.
I am suing my bank along with a large group of people. It is mainly to pressure the bank into some kind of settlement. The law firm is also seeking monetary damages in addition to a re-negotiated mortgage.
I personally would not be totally satisfied with a decision that only pays. I would like to see some heads roll, at least one or two as a token to our broken and corrupt justice system and our dual standards.