Last month Dallas, this month Ohio
Last month in Dallas County, the District Attorney sued Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS) claiming they owe the county anywhere from $58 million to $100 million in recording fees that they did not pay, alleging the company was set up as a means for lenders to avoid local mortgage filing fees.
Now, Geauga County in Ohio has filed suit against MERS, lodging the same complaint as Dallas County, claiming MERS owes them over a decade of filing fees.
“The MERS business model and practices comply with the recording statutes and regulations of Ohio,” says a MERS statement. “This position has been upheld in numerous cases in Ohio courts and countless cases across the country on the state and Federal level. We are confident that MERS’ business practices will be upheld in court as complying with Ohio law.”
According to court documents, Geauga County alleges that MERS broke the law and that they “systematically broke chains of land title throughout Ohio counties’ public land records by creating gaps due to missing mortgage assignments they failed to record, or by recording patently false or misleading mortgage assignments.”
This is bigger than just MERS
It appears that the domino effect has begun and MERS looks to be in a tight spot if just one of the various suits is lost, but more troubling for the company is that Ohio’s suit takes it a step further by naming various banks as defendants ranging from Bank of America to CoreLogic- this is bigger than just MERS. Counties are now going to be looking for millions in skipped filing fees by going after MERS, banks, servicers and more.
All defendants named in Ohio lawsuit:
- MERSCORP INC.
- MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC SYSTEM INC.
- HOME SAVINGS & LOAN COMPANY OF YOUNGSTOWN
- BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION
- CCO MORTGAGE CORPORATION
- CHASE HOME MORTGAGE CORPORATION
- CITIMORTGAGE INC.
- CORELOGIC REAL ESTATE SOLUTIONS, LLC
- CORINTHIAN MORTGAGE CORPORATION
- EVERHOME MORTGAGE COMPANY
- GMAC RESIDENTIAL FUNDING CORPORATION
- GUARANTY BANK SSB
- HSBC BANK USA
- MGIC INVESTORS SERVICES CORPORATION
- NATIONWIDE ADVANTAGE MORTGAGE COMPANY
- PMI MORTGAGE SERVICES COMPANY
- SUNTRUST MORTGAGE INC
- UNITED GUARANTY CORPORATION
- WELLS FARGO BANK
