It's been about 3 1/2 months since George Knapp came out with his 'investigative' article - and subsequent Coast show - about all the folks in Nevada that were supposedly going to lose their homes due to a corrupted chain of title in the paper trail because 'banks and their service providers cranked out mountains of bogus mortgage documents'.
Nowhere in the article or show was Title Insurance even mentioned, although no bank would give someone a mortgage without it.
If this had any validity, by now shouldn't we be hearing about all the people in Nevada being thrown out of their homes because they were never the real owners? Shouldn't the scandal have reached the mainstream media, who are quick to jump all over this sort of thing? If it was BS from the start and George K was misiformed, or if this was all somehow resolved, shouldn't there be a follow up or a retraction?
Or is it ok that he puts this stuff out there, true or not, as part of some agenda, then walks away onto his next 'investigaton'?
I came to this thread to comment on how much I enjoyed the wild horses and the BLM portion of the show, but will respond quickly to the questions raised.
The simple fact is that there is a LOT of problems right now with MERS, title insurance and foreclosures. There are still a lot of issues that have to work their way through courts (and politicians have been busy finding ways to allow banks to sweep the mess under the rug.) I can honestly say that I would not touch a foreclosure in the US right now with a 20 foot pole (and it has nothing to do with Knapp.) I know- people want some proof. How about a headline from less than a week ago out of N. Carolina?
Read the full legal complaint filed by the registrar of deeds here. [size=78%]
http://static1.firedoglake.com/37/files/2012/03/Guilford-Complaint.pdf[/size]
Pulled from the complaint is
a. Without available, orderly, and accurate records, landowners can lose their property as a result of illegal foreclosures.b. Without available, orderly, and accurate records, landowners can be deprived of the ability to discover and remedy title defects.c. Without available, orderly, and accurate records, landowners can be deprived of the ability to buy and sell property.d. Without available, orderly, and accurate records, mortgage holders’ interests in property can be jeopardized.e. Without available, orderly, and accurate records, potential purchasers cannot obtain financing to purchase property and/or risk loss of any property purchased.He wants the banks to pay for somebody to look at every deed and every record that they have touched and fix the problems. This is just one lawsuit in one county. If you look into robosigning, MERS, lawsuits and title insurance I think you may find that you are a little quick to condemn George on this one. It may be that everything comes out in the wash and that there are no problems (I believe that one major lawsuit was dismissed earlier this week.) For now, I think it is fair that he produced a segment to warn people of possible problems. If he produced his piece three months ago, you need to realize that the speed that the legal system works at and the number of complaints and suits means that it will probably be a half a decade before anybody can safely pronounce that there was all smoke with no fire.
HR 2425 was introduced to prevent Freddie and Fannie from owning or guaranteeing any mortgage that MERS has touched (presently it has been referred to committee as per [size=78%]
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr2425[/size]
) For a position paper (white paper) written by the independent land title agents, you can look here http://www.iailta.org/?p=7&option=com_wordpress&Itemid=105Finally, if you are really bored, or have not looked closely at MERS, there is always a whitepaper here [size=78%]
MERS, The Unreported Effects of Lost Chain of Title on Real Property Owners and Their Neighbors[/size]
In short, there is still a lot of mess to clean up before pronouncing everything "good." There are still a lot of problems to look at before saying that Knapp was just being alarmist. I appreciate seeing somebody in the mainstream press warning people that there may be problems. At least after you have been warned you can fairly decide if it is worth the risks...