THIGPEN WANTS TO TAKE ON MORTGAGE GIANTS:

A Greensboro, NC Guilford County Register of Deeds is going after MERS for $1.3 million in fees for mortgage assingment. I wish him luck.(Joe Vera)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Greensboro, NC
March 2, 2011
Contact:
Jeff Thigpen, Guilford County Register of Deeds
Ph. 336-451-5300
Ph. 336-641-3239
jthigpe@co.guilford.nc.us
THIGPEN WANTS TO TAKE ON MORTGAGE GIANTS:
SEEKS INVESTIGATION OF “MERS” FOR REIMBURSEMENT OF $1.3 MILLION IN LOST
REVENUE TO GUILFORD COUNTY
Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen announced today that he will be conferring with County
Attorney Mark Payne, NC Attorney General and Secretary of State as to whether the Mortgage Electronic
Registration Service (MERS) owes Guilford County fees estimated at $1.3 million in lost revenue from
mortgage assignments. Thigpen also wants to review pending legal actions against MERS and consider
options to protect the integrity of public land recordation offices.
“As Register of Deeds, I have two primary responsibilities in land records: a sworn duty to protect the
chain of title and a fiduciary responsibility to collect recording fees. Quite frankly, MERS has
undermined both. Through their own “private for-profit” Register of Deeds mortgage tracking office,
MERS has created a dangerous centralization of power whose sole purpose is to protect and serve the
interests of major banking conglomerates and undermine public recording offices,” said Thigpen.
“For me, the question is clear. Do we want land records in America to be governed by major banking
conglomerates on Wall Street or the people and laws of the United States of America?”
MERS has an electronic registry and database system that tracks more than 65 million mortgages for its
paid membership throughout the country and aides the mortgage backed securities trade in the secondary
market. MERS is reportedly involved in 60% of US mortgage loans. It was established by some of the
largest mortgage lenders in the United States including Wells Fargo, Chase Mortgage, Citi Mortgage,
Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. and Bank of America among others in 1997. A number of class action
lawsuits and civil racketeering suits have arisen against MERS recently, including a suit alleging its
members owe California $60-120 billion for circumventing land recording fees. MERS has also been at
the center of recent foreclosure chaos.
Since the founding of America, counties in the United States have maintained public records of land,
mortgages and deeds of trust, by maintaining indexes of grantors and grantees. Register of Deeds offices
ensure transparency and an important check and balance in private property ownership. County recording
practices have been in place for 300 years. “It is interesting that the first fundamental change in public
land title recording systems was not initiated by publicly elected leaders, but a small group of mortgage
industry insiders. Now it’s coming back to bite all of us- homeowners and taxpayers. MERS creates a
system where only certain eyes see the data and what’s going on. I have a real problem with that as a
Recorder.
Thigpen is asking for clarity on the California suit and others surrounding MERS business practices in
packaging and repackages home owner loans through securitization. MERS has saved larger financial
firms millions of dollars while avoiding recordation and payment of fees related to mortgage transfers.
Since 2005 there were 47,553 deeds of trust that list MERS as a beneficiary filed in the Guilford County
Register of Deeds office. Experts have indicated that those kinds of loans are repackaged and sold two
and four times on average under the MERS system. “One repackaging of MERS documents would have
generated $665,742 if documentation had been filed in our office. Two repackaged loans would have
generated $1,331,484. And that’s conservative estimate.”
Thigpen maintains the lost recording fees would help local elected officials reduce budget deficits and
maintain core services such as public education and public safety in this time of fiscal crisis.
Thigpen’s primary concern relates to recent court rulings in Arkansas, Kansas, Maine and Missouri
questioning MERS legal standing in home foreclosures and suits challenging that MERS filings may be
fraudulent. “If MERS filings are false statements, there are laws that say if you decrease the money that
you pay for a service through using those false statements then you can get damages. The legal term is
“unjust enrichment”. Thigpen wants to explore unjust enrichment and other options related to recovery of
lost revenue.
Thigpen acknowledges that NC General Statutes do not currently require assignments to be filed in local
Register of Deeds offices which allow the public to know the rightful owner of a mortgage. “That may
need to change among other things”, says Thigpen. Thigpen points to a major policy change from
MERS in the past two weeks conceding that assignments should be filed in public registries across the
country even if the state law does not require it and instructed members not to foreclose in MERS name.
“It indicates to me that they know they need to fix this.”
“It used to be that if you bought a house, the mortgage would stay at a single bank until you paid it off.
Times have changed. Through securitization, mortgages are all put in a blender and sold off to Wall
Street investors and Fannie and Freddie among others. MERS has its finger on the spin button. At the
end of the day with MERS, Susie Homeowner can’t keep track of who owns her loan and if she’s going to
get hit with new fees or even foreclosure.
“This type of unregulated greed is giving charity to all the people who should be giving it and undermines
good business practices.” says Thigpen. Thigpen points out those local credit unions like State
Employees Credit Union who didn’t participate in sub-prime lending have avoided legal difficulties.
“This is a mess and the MERS system impacts millions of homeowners across the country in danger of
having their homes foreclosed”, said Thigpen. He wants a review of the lawsuits and investigations into
MERS by state attorney generals and others and believes it will take a coordinated at the local, state and
federal level to resolve it. “To me these issues with MERS are simple. Are major banking conglomerates
going to tell the truth or not; and are we going choose to have two standards of justice in America: one for
Big Money and the other for the rest of us?
Thigpen will also join Southern Sussex Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brian, Jr. in urging
national organizations such as the International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and
Treasurers (IACREOT) to address MERS in the coming weeks.