Speaking of lenders behaving badly

WILLIAM M. ACKER, JR., District Judge.

This case illustrates the shortcomings, even the dangers, of the once mighty global secondary mortgage loan market, with its arcane methods of doing business, conceived by ambitious, super-sophisticated, big-brained, short-sighted financiers and their lawyers, who did not realize that they were creating a Frankenstein for everybody involved except the lawyers. Based on the number of somewhat similar cases pending in various federal and state courts, the roof has come crashing down, and its restoration remains in doubt.

In the complicated world of the high risk mortgage industry as it existed at all times here pertinent, the answer to a question as simple as “who is the owner of a mortgage?” is not always apparent from a review of the land records where the real property is located. In fact, the term “owner” may mean “a hundred owners” involved in a joint or divided undertaking or investment where the original homeowner-borrower is unaware of who the “real” “owners” are. This complexity is exacerbated when the “owner” or “owners” begin to split up and transfer the mortgage and note willy-nilly, often effectuating the transfer by simply endorsing the note in blank, affixing an allonge to it, and assuming that the mortgage security and right to foreclose will pass with the note by operation of law.

Duke v. Nationstar Mortg., L.L.C., 893 F.Supp.2d 1238, 2012 WL 3852121, N.D.Ala., August 30, 2012