Bankers’ mortgage system survives legal storm in Utah

It says something about the ubiquity of the alternative mortgage registration system created by the nation’s bankers that it is now suing itself in a Utah lawsuit.

But even without that anomaly, the lawsuit is a bizarre confluence of factors that has caught a Draper couple in a situation where they bought a home based on a clean title report only to now be in court fighting to ensure the transaction was legitimate.

The case demonstrates both how much the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. bankers created in the mid-1990s has invaded the state’s traditional property registration system and how it also left cracks along the way.

And while MERS has beaten back a flood of lawsuits in Utah challenging its legality, it faces serious legal actions in other states over its usurping of traditional real estate recording practices. Salt Lake Tribune