Even more good news from New York:
The ubiquitous Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, nominal holder of millions of mortgages, does not have the right to foreclose on a mortgage in default or assign that right to anyone else if it does not hold the underlying promissory note, the Appellate Division, Second Department, ruled Friday.
“This Court is mindful of the impact that this decision may have on the mortgage industry in New York, and perhaps the nation,” Justice John M. Leventhal wrote for a unanimous panel in Bank of New York v. Silverberg, 17464/08.
“Nonetheless, the law must not yield to expediency and the convenience of lending institutions. Proper procedures must be followed to ensure the reliability of the chain of ownership, to secure the dependable transfer of property, and to assure the enforcement of the rules that govern real property.” The opinion noted that MERS is involved in about 60 percent of the mortgages originated in the United States.
Holy shit, the rule of law still exists in America! Seriously, this is a BFD.
Well, in some jurisdictions. And, good thing.
But…what if Obama, the Corporatist Dems, joined by Corporatist Repubs and whoever else wants to curry favor with and obtain donations from the FIRE sector enact legislation to make all the mortgage documentation woes go away for the Big Banksters?
NTimes article did state Obama is on a charm campaign to get his big Wall Street donors back into donating to him….
John Kunstler (http://www.kunstler.com/blog/) has been saying all along that this is the really deep destructive issue in this economic system, as you say, the rule of law. The system of deeds, notes, and so on is the only sure foundation of property ownership we have. If that can not be trusted, then nobody knows who owns anything. I would have thought that the banks, at least, would have been concerned about this, but at some point it all became such an abstract game that it didn’t really matter that nobody really owned anything and each piece of reality (real estate) was divided into a hundred interchangeable pieces owned by a hundred different entities. The only ones who had to deal with reality are the poor soul who is losing his house and the deputy sheriff putting him and his family out on the street.
Wow — MERS has turned into merz. At least temporarily.
But eventually the appeals courts will save the day and strike down the rule of law. The Supreme Court is a reliable bulwark against legality and constitutionality when it comes to serving big corporations.