February 19, 2013
1st Circuit Holds that MA Borrowers Can Challenge Mortgage Assignments
A First Circuit panel (including Justice Souter) ruled that under Massachusetts law, “a mortgagor has standing to challenge a mortgage assignment as invalid, ineffective, or void (if, say, the assignor had nothing to assign or had no authority to make an assignment to a particular assignee).” (14) The court concisely sets forth what is at issue in the case:
The fact pattern here is emblematic: the mortgagor’s note was delivered to one party (the lender) and then transferred; the mortgage itself was granted to a different entity, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., and later assigned to the foreclosing entity. We are asked, as a matter of first impression for this court, to pass upon not only the legality and
effect of this arrangement but also the mortgagor’s right to challenge it. The substantive law of Massachusetts controls our inquiry. (2-3, footnotes omitted)
There are some important dicta in the case. The court states that “there is no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the common arrangement whereby MERS holds bare legal title as mortgagee of record and the noteholder alone enjoys the beneficial interest in the loan.” (16)
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