CW to BofA to Green Tree Oh My! Who really owns this mortgage anyway?

[ksmusselman]

Hi all! My heart goes out to anyone and everyone dealing with these idiots. So here's our story (mine and hubby's) and where we're at after two years of trying to do a loan mod with Bank of America:

So a couple of years ago we were trying to refinance the house and found out that Bank of America had reported to the credit reporting agencies that we were four months behind in our mortgage.

We then attempted to apply for a loan modification, which Bank of America dismissed because they kept losing our papers, claiming they didn't receive them.

And today we get a letter from Bank of America informing us that our mortgage is being "transferred" to a new loan service provider as of June 16, 2012.

So in a phone call with Bank of America today, June 4, 2012, I again requested Bank of America to produce the note or the assignment of mortgage on file from Countrywide to Bank of America. They skirted the issue claiming I had to get the information from Countrywide's website, which was a bunch of bologna because the website address that they gave me has to do with some data theft claims and nothing to do with mortgages.

Then I went to our county's Recorder of Deeds. This was the result:

According to our Recorder of Deeds in Berks County, only three instruments were ever recorded for our property and mortgage:

1. 5/26/2005: The original deed from the seller to the buyer
2. 5/26/2005: The original mortgage which lists MERS INC Nominee as the mortgagee when we signed the loan note with Countrywide.
3. 1/25/2012: An alleged assignment of mortgage from MERS to Bank of New York.

Around July 2009 Bank of America bought Countywide; however, there is NO recorded mortgage assignment from Countrywide or MERS to Bank of America. We have been paying our mortgage to Bank of America for years.

Bank of America customer service tried to tell us that Countrywide is Bank of America; however I know this is not true. They were two completely separate entities and when Countrywide sold its shares to Bank of America, any and all mortgages it held were to be assigned to Bank of America. This was not done.

This alleged assignment from MERS to Bank of New York - NOT Bank of America, was only recorded AFTER we requested Bank of America to produce the note on our mortgage, which they still have not done despite repeated requests.

So - if there is no assignment recorded from MERS/Countrywide TO Bank of America, then Bank of America has no legal standing to assign/reassign the mortgage to another servicer, which makes the alleged assignment that was recorded on 1/25/2012 null and void since there were NO recorded assigments prior to that date assigning the mortgage to Bank of America.

But yet Bank of America is telling us that Bank of New York is the original investor, however, their name didn't even show up on any documents until the alleged mortbage assignment in Jan. 2012.

So how can MERS assign the mortgage to Bank of New York if they had no legal standing in the first place, because Countrywide doesn't seem to have legally assigned the mortgage to MERS or anyone else for that matter?

Where and when did Bank of America come in?

Who the hell owns the mortgage now?

Which brings me to this - if Bank of America has had no legal standing at all regarding our mortgage, then everything reported by them to the credit reporting agencies should be removed as well, right?

So now I'm trying to decide if I should just file a quiet title against Bank of America/MERS before this Green Tree outfit takes over.

Any suggestions? Feedback? I really don't want to have to start all over with yet another mortgage company, lender, servicer or whatever they choose to call themselves next.

Thanks!

Karen & Jim

[fedupinillinois]

Karen and Jim,

Although we are in Illinois our situation is exactly like yours.
We bought in late 2005 with Countrywide, of course it became BoA years later, and end of October last year (three days before our next payment was due to BoA to be exact) we got a letter from BoA stating that the 'servicing' of our mortgage was now going to be Green Tree.
According to the recorder of deed in Cook County here, our information is just like yours.
MERS is listed as the grantee on document type 'mortage' and there is no further activity since then.
Nothing showing from CW to BoA to GT. We are going to be contacting another attorney to inquire about this.
If we can get some answers from an attorney here, we will share our findings with you.
From the arguments we have read, if MERS was not able to legally foreclose on such properties, 68 million some properties would be free and clear to those people in that situation. I don't see that happening, but sounds like it should be after all that has happened.
We'll keep you posted.

We found this bit while trying to find out more about MERS.

-The company is the owner of record (or the owner's nominee) of the security interest arising from mortgages extended by lenders, investors and their loan servicers and recorded in county land records. By using MERS, the lenders and investors who are the real parties in interest avoid the need to file assignments in county land records, which lowers costs for lenders and, they claim, consumers by reducing county recording fee expenses resulting from real estate transfers and provides a central source of information and tracking for mortgage loans. The company's role in facilitating mortgage trading was relatively uncontroversial in its early days a decade ago, but continued fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis has put MERS at the center of several legal challenges disputing the company's right to initiate foreclosures. Should these challenges succeed, the US banking industry could face a renewed need for capitalization.

Burn baby burn!!!

[ksmusselman]

Hello fedup!

Thank you for your post to this forum! I finally convinced my husband that this was something that could no longer be pushed aside, that we absolutely have to do something NOW before our documents get any more convoluted. I explained to him that as things stand now, if something were to happen to either of us, the other wouldn't be able to sell due to a now clouded title on the property. If something would happen to both of us, none of our kids would be able to do anything with the property either.

Once I explained this to him, plus showed him this information: What Do You Do If You Find MERS on Your Mortgage? | Bank Fraud Info Center which outlines the exact steps we need to take and why, he was right on board and has been doing some research himself.

Also, we noticed today that BofA requested the documents on Jan 2012 - ON THE SAME DAY that MERS did an alleged mortgage assignment.

But the bottom line is - BofA is not able to produce the original note; they simply cannot because they don't have it. And if they can't nobody can because I believe it was one of the thousands, if not millions, of original loan docs that MERS destroyed before the mortgage was reassigned.

It's a real mess, that's for sure. But I absolutely refuse to "roll over and play dead" where my house is concerned! Like so many politicians are saying - be squatters in your own home, file for quiet title and sue the bastards!

If, as small business owners, WE did something like this to one OUR customers, WE'D be sitting in jail for fraud! So guess what? For putting us through the stress and frustration they've put us through for the past two years AND for helping to completely RUIN our credit, they owe me a house deed in return, free and clear!

Keep us posted, and I'll keep you posted too! Good luck to you!!

[fedupinillinois]

ksmusselman,

What a great link you included in your post!!!
We had not found that yet and there is more info than we could imagine there.
The stress and frustration we have, we are slowly learning to turn it into constructive recourse against these clowns and pledge to fight this with every last bit of energy and strength we have.
To think before we actually made the decision to walk we were nervous wrecks and losing sleep over the whole situation.
Now we actually look forward to fighting this out no matter what happens.
Thank you again and we certainly will keep everyone posted.

[Micky]

I feel your pain had a mortgage with the now defunct CountryWide who sold it to BOA 'my worse nightmare' shortly after there transfer we had to shut down our 3 businesses of 15 years and go back and find work while cont to make pmts things became more difficult decided to try for a home mod thru BOA WHAT A JOKE The left hand doesn't know what the right hands doing 16 packages of the same request for information later decided to hire a attorney. [ jury still out on that decision] then I get letter sold again to JP MORGAN Serviced by SLS another disaster they never answer att letters or demands so court order MOTION TO COMPELL TO SLS went to court they were given specific amt of time to comply still waiting been about about a week since. Yesterday 6/6/2012 received letter from SLS notice to default and notice of intent to forclose due to failure to pay the 11/01/11 pmt and payments due each month thereafter ......Imagine that after cashing each one of my pmts each month these idiots are clueless I can't even think of words for them plus you can't even reason with them all you get is telaprompt idiots on the phone repeating the same thing over and over they don't get it COMPLETLY OVER IT AND DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!!

[fedupinillinois]

Today we actually went to the MERS website before contacting another attorney and found they listed Green Tree as the 'servicer' for our mortgage. Instead of calling one of the attorneys we had free consultations with, we found another. We were very upset with the info we were told, though we don't put much stock in it. The attorney claimed that even though the changes were never made with the county (Recorder of Deeds) since MERS showed that Green Tree was the current servicer, Green Tree could foreclose on behalf of MERS.
Our immediate arguement was that if MERS held the note (if at all) Green Tree had no real interest in the mortgage to begin with and shouldn't be able to initiate foreclosure on their behalf. Furthermore, how can MERS have an interest in the mortgage when it was Countrywide that we had signed the note with? Of course it's all legal mumbo-jumbo we don't understand and it wouldn't be known the outcome of course until it actaully went to court and we retained an attorney to review our case and documents.
In our case, at best, between the appraisal fraud, the Assignment and Standing Issue, if we can't find some way to fight this, it is a true testiment to how screwed up the system really is.

We are going to try and get another opinion from another attorney, but when they are not getting paid, and they can't see all the facts, the information is hard to get.
And we don't blame them... We wouldn't want to work for free either. We'll update everyone when we learn more.

[JJinAZ]

What ever became of this. Did you get anywhere with this approach?

[fedupinillinois]

What ever became of this. Did you get anywhere with this approach?

Absolutely NOT! The battle continues... And it doesn't look promising.. Legally, there is nothing that can be found that is improper on their behalf.

Ahh, nine months now, no foreclosure and no Deed in Lieu.. Though they claim they are working on it, still!

Laughable at this point..