CULHANE v AURORA | 1st Circuit - The mortgagor has standing to contest the validity of the mortgage assignment made by MERS to the foreclosing entity

Obviously MERS is a huge, HUGE problem and judges need to give it the ultimate Boot and go back to real property law...confused yet with other courts throwing MERS to the curb and others thinking it's ok?? Capiche?

What taxpayer gave the banks permission to just come in and destroy our property/land record offices with this PRIVATE system that they can use to circumvent fees? Can we do this as individuals? The Answer is NO.

We introduce this subject with a riddle: What entity is not a bank but claims to hold title to approximately half of all the mortgaged homes in the country? The answer is MERS.

 

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

ORATAI CULHANE, Plaintiff, Appellant,

v.

AURORA LOAN SERVICES OF NEBRASKA, Defendant, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. William G. Young, U.S. District Judge] Before Lynch, Chief Judge, Souter,* Associate Justice, and Selya, Circuit Judge.

George E. Babcock, with whom Rockwell P. Ludden and Ludden Kramer Law P.C. were on brief, for appellant. Reneau J. Longoria, with whom John A. Doonan, Erin P. Severin

and Doonan, Graves & Longoria, LLC were on brief, for appellee. February 15, 2013 SELYA, Circuit Judge. As the millennium dawned, American financial markets soared to new heights. One of the vehicles that propelled this dizzying flight involved the bundling and securitization of residential mortgage loans. But all good things 1 come to an end, cf. Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1374) ("There is an end to everything, to good things as well."), and it was not long before the economy faltered and the housing bubble burst. A rash of residential mortgage foreclosures followed. Novel practices had been devised to facilitate the bundling and securitization of residential mortgage loans — and those practices gave rise to hitherto unanswered questions in the foreclosure context. The fact pattern here is emblematic: the mortgagor's note was delivered to one party (the lender) and then transferred; the mortgage itself was granted to a different entity, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., and later assigned 2 to the foreclosing entity. We are asked, as a matter of first impression for this court, to pass upon not only the legality and effect of this arrangement but also the mortgagor's right to challenge it. The substantive law of Massachusetts controls our inquiry. [...] Under the terms of the mortgage, MERS, as mortgagee of record, held legal title to the mortgaged premises. As such, it enjoyed a power of sale "solely as nominee" for the lender. At this juncture, we think it helpful to provide some background about the mysterious entity known as MERS. We introduce this subject with a riddle: What entity is not a bank but claims to hold title to approximately half of all the mortgaged homes in the country? The answer is MERS. See Michael Powell & Gretchen Morgenson, MERS? It May Have Swallowed Your Loan, N.Y. Times, Mar. 6, 2011, at BU1. [...]