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Most county recorders have little understanding about what MERS is and how it relates to securitization of mortgage pools. They also have no idea how that affects the chain of title in the county land records insofar as a policy stance is concerned.
“The whole foreclosure thing … and bankruptcies … the stuff that’s going on … we should have one of the biggest, progressive revolutions that we’ve ever had in this country”, Thigpen says. “I have had family members that have been foreclosed on … and they’re some of the finest people I know. I’ve seen people go through a foreclosure process where foreclosure mill attorneys have been dictating the pace of the foreclosure, holding onto the property (to the point) where they (the homeowner) have become emotionally spent.”
It was the emotions of seeing people Thigpen says he knows, loves and has a great deal of respect for “in essence, being humiliated” was his “A-HA!” moment in realizing that there was more to the story that just the misfortune of those plagued by unemployment and health issues.
 “I went really hook, line and sinker on the 60 Minutes piece,” admits Thigpen, referring to the March 26, 2011 CBS News segment by Scott Pelley, who interviewed Florida attorney Lynn Szymoniak, who is investigating fraud in the foreclosure processes of area homeowners in Palm Beach County. In that segment, Pelley target a known “robosignor”, Linda Green”, who was hired by Lender Processing Services, Inc.’s now-defunct “DOCX” unit to sign her name to hundreds of documents a day without reading what she was signing. Even worse, Pelley connected with a male cohort at DOCX that admitted that he too signed Ms. Green’s signature and was paid $10 an hour to sign 350+ documents a day as a bank Vice President.
Jeff Thigpen is the Register of Deeds for Guilford County, North Carolina.
“This is massive fraud that is on a scale of epic,” Thigpen adds, after contacting Lynn Szymoniak, Essex County Recorder John O’Brien (who is already taking serious action in his duties as Register of Deeds against MERS and robosignors) and others and weeding through over 1,400 documents alone with Linda Green’s signature on them ... a stack 2-1/2 feet high! “I think it is fundamentally counter to the values and principles that are nation should stand for and I think it is a mockery of 300 years of our land record economy.”
Like a warning shot fired across a bow, Thigpen and a handful of other elected officials assigned with the arduous task of maintaining county land records for their respective jurisdictions have vowed to go beyond the scope of what most of their lot concedes is a “ministerial minionship” and become proactive against fraudulent recordations by banking institutions, servicing entities and MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.).
“If somebody tells you this stuff’s going to go away in two years they’re lying to you. This stuff is going to play itself out for a generation.”
The message to all the property recorders is that theirs is the most important political position in the country. You need to become involved and encourage your county recorder to join Jeff, John and Nancy to help bring awareness to this huge issue that will not go away until and unless the County Recorders come to realize the critical importance of their position.
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