Long Island Lawmaker To Restart Battle Against MERS Over Fee-Dodging Related To Unrecorded Mortgage Assignments

The New York Post reports:

• The $2 billion battle has begun. When the Suffolk County Legislature meets again next week, the county's share of an estimated $2 billion in fees big banks saved with their electronic record-keeping system -- bypassing paper mortgage records in county clerks' offices -- will top the agenda for legislator Ed Romaine.
• In his previous job as county clerk, Romaine fought in court against the Mortgage Electronic Recording System, or MERS, for several years in early 2000s and lost. But he’s taking another run at it now as the firm’s shaky legal foundation is cracking and so many ordinary homeowners are suffering from questionable foreclosure actions involving MERS. Created by big banks in the mid-1990s, MERS let them skip the expense of filing paper records. MERS has since filed thousands of foreclosure actions for lenders.
• "We lost revenues, and they've acted wrongly," said Romaine, who estimates MERS has drained more than $100 million that rightfully belongs to his cash-strapped county. "Filing paper assignments prevented some of the abuses."
• Romaine's move is part of a growing wave of serious legal challenges to MERS -- moves that ordinary homeowners [...] are praying might help them in loan modification negotations when other options have failed.

For more, see Asking for MERS-y (Homeowners, counties battle bank loan system).