NEW YORK — A North Carolina county on Tuesday sued four of the nation's largest banks and a private mortgage registration system over forged and falsified loan documents state official said have hurt property values and upended their own efforts at tracking records.
The lawsuit filed in a North Carolina court for Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen, names units of Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc., and MERSCorp., which owns the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems. It also names mortgage processing and analytics firm Lender Processing Services.
Thigpen's lawsuit alleging robo-signing, or the filing of mortgage documents signed without proper review, comes just a day after the four named banks and Ally Financial Inc. agreed with state attorneys general to a landmark $25 billion settlement of similar foreclosure abuses. The banks neither admitted or denied guilt in the attorney general settlement, which doesn't protect them from certain other litigation.
Thigpen said he wants the banks and MERS to "clean up the mess" they made and increase the transparency of the private registry that has resulted in fraudulent mortgage filings.
Just last month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman charged MERS has curbed the public's ability to track property transfers because those transfers are maintained in a private registry instead of county clerk offices. Delaware officials have also sued MERS for damaging the state's land records and leading to faulty foreclosure practices.
