Title Histories

Title Histories, Property Values and Tax Base - Proven Knowledge of a Critical Issue

The banks have evaded filing fees when transferring mortgages as they were securitized. Clerk's throughout the Country are going after MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System) for millions, if not billions in lost revenue, such as in Florida the Clerk of Duval County, along with a host of others such as Texas and Houston County ($10 Billion), the New York State Attorney General, the Delaware Attorney General and most recently 14 Counties in Kentucky. I have a low ball estimate that Monroe County has lost at a minimum of $500,000 in revenue, but more likely close to $2 Million Dollars of filing fees, if not more. We need to recapture this lost revenue and develop an electronic tracking system of our own, controlled by the Clerk's Office, not by the Banks.

It is for this very reason that the foreclosure mess is backlogging our courts, at a tremendous expense. Further, if for no other reason, the Clerk exists to maintain records, and the banks have arbitrarily chosen to usurp the authority of the County Clerks. All of this has eroded confidence in our title histories continuing the downward pressure on property values, tax revenue and ultimately every agency's budget. So when the school system needs to reduce their budget dramatically, I place a great degree of the problem on issues that now need to be addressed by the County Clerk's office.

Even though recently the Banks have entered into a substantial settlement with 49 States including Florida to avoid prosecution, it only confirms the fact that by their actions, the Banks have caused a great deal of harm to our title histories. Settlement or not, locally we now need to make reparations to our land records, and we need to hold the banks accountable by making them assist us in that endeavor.

I have written about this subject frequently in local papers and blogs, and have assisted in researching the critical components to the extent that the State Attorney is actively investigating what the banks have done here in Monroe County based primarily on my research.