Who Owns Your Mortgage? Ask Them to Produce the Note

September 23, 2009 · Posted in News For Homebuyers

Last June, we wrote a blog post “Foreclosure Fighting Words: Produce the Note.” The post was met with glee from hurting homeowners while others said it was illegal to do and still others felt you signed the mortgage papers, so it’s your obligation to pay up.

Today, I see the Huffington Post is plastering its home page with a similar article, “Who Owns Your Mortgage? Produce the Note Movement Helps Stall Foreclosures.”

“You wouldn’t imagine that the lenders would be that slovenly that they would not be able to produce adequate documentation of the debt,” said House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.). “But apparently a lot of times they really have been unable to.”

And, in a recent study by visiting professor Katherine M. Porter from the U.C. Berkeley law school, she found that “…in 40 percent of cases creditors foreclosing on borrowers did not show the note. It’s what consumer rights advocates and strict judges are seizing on.”

There is actually a bill in Congress (sponsored by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) that would prohibit foreclosures unless lenders “produced the note,” but that bill is presently stuck in the House Financial Services Committee.