The Michigan Supreme Court has reversed an April 2011 ruling from the Michigan Court of Appeals, saying that the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) does have the right to initiate non-judicial foreclosures in the state[1]. The previous appellate court judgment prevented MERS from foreclosing by advertisement, which involves creditors being able to foreclose after posting a notice of default in a newspaper for four consecutive weeks. MERS can now foreclose both judicially and non-judicially in the state, enabling, as the president and CEO of Merscorp put it, “the Michigan real estate industry to get back to business as usual.” The April ruling had resulted in title companies refusing to handle MERS-related transactions and HUD instructing mortgagees to re-file MERS foreclosures.
Curtis Hertel, the Ingham County Register of Deeds who has filed a class action against MERS for unpaid transfer fees, has been outspoken on the system and what he perceives as abuses of it for months. The reversal on the ruling has him outraged, and he has said that the reversal is “an embarrassment to those of us who care about the property records of this state and…the citizens who are affected by these foreclosures”[2]. Hertel has accused MERS of deliberately creating a “shadow registry system” to prevent effective and accurate mortgage ownership tracking.
Do you think that this reversal was a good decision?
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[1] http://www.dsnews.com/articles/michigan-supreme-court-reverses-ruling-on-mers-right-to-foreclose-2011-11-16
[2] http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-17/mers-wins-appeal-of-decision-limiting-michigan-foreclosures.html
I think some of these judges are in the banks pockets.