Another County Joins In Attack On MERS' Scheme Allegedly Contrived To Stiff Municipal Recorders' Offices Out Of Recording Fees On Mortgage Transfers

In Belleville, Illinois, The Associated Press reports:

• An Illinois prosecutor is suing 22 local and national banks and mortgage companies, accusing them of deceit and fraud in using an electronic mortgage registry to sidestep recording fees his county should have been collecting.
  
  
• St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly contends the lenders engaged in fraud and deception by failing to file documents with the county’s recorder of deeds.
  
  
• The lawsuit claims that the companies used an electronic mortgage database system called the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. that tracked the transfers of loans between lenders and Wall Street securities entities, thereby eliminating the public’s ability to see the purchase and sale of properties through the traditional public records system.
  
  
• Kelly said the county’s recorder’s office estimates that system allowed tens of thousands of transfers of title to take place without proper documentation.

For more, see County sues mortgage lenders, claiming fraud.