The Voice • November 2018
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently heard arguments from lawyers representing MERS, the nationwide electronic database that tracks mortgage transfers, over the liability of conveyances processed by the MERS system that aren’t officially recorded and processed at the county records level.
MERS has been involved with four separate lawsuits involving different Recorder of Deeds Offices in PA. The lawsuits resulted from the company not recording transfers, which means not paying recording fees to the respective offices.
The justices also heard from Joshua Snyder, representing the four ROD offices that previously filed lawsuits, who sited P.S. Section 351 to argue that MERS & Merscorp had violated recording law by not submitting to county officials the conveyances processed in the MERS system from one member to another.
Snyder further explained to the court that counties have a specific financial interest with every conveyance and that “failing to register each transfer can cause confusion and exacerbate problems when title is contested, or a property is foreclosed on.” [1]
Another aspect of his argument was that the state recording system was intended to be “open and public” but that allowing MERS to not register conveyances with county offices creates a system that is “closed off and private.” [1]
Sources
[1] https://www.law.com/thelegalintelligencer/2018/09/27/private-mortgage-registry-tells-pa-high-court-its-users-cant-be-held-liable-for-bypassing-county-offices/
[2] https://law.justia.com/cases/pennsylvania/commonwealth-court/2017/523-c-d-2016.html
[3] https://www.housingwire.com/articles/40068-mers-wins-in-four-pennsylvania-county-lawsuits
