Indiana Supreme Court Concludes That MERS Is Merely The Agent Of The Actual Mortgagee

What is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (“MERS”)?  More specifically, what does mortgage language identifying MERS “as nominee” mean?  The Indiana Supreme Court in Citimortgage v. Barabas, 2012 Ind. LEXIS 802 (Ind. 2012) dealt with those and other questions surrounding the role of MERS in the foreclosure world. 

Setting the table.  As noted in my prior posts about Citimortgage, junior mortgagee ReCasa initiated a foreclosure action and named only Irwin, the purported senior mortgagee, as a defendant.  The language in the subject mortgage stated that Barabas, the mortgagor, granted the mortgage to MERS “as nominee” of Irwin, identified as the lender.  Upon being sued to answer as to its interests in the subject real estate, Irwin quickly filed a disclaimer of interest, and the court dismissed Irwin from the case.  The trial court later entered judgment for ReCasa, which acquired the real estate at the sheriff’s sale.  ReCasa then sold the real estate to a third party, Sanders.  A month later, Citimortgage filed a motion to intervene in the action and asked the trial court to set aside the judgment and sheriff’s sale. 

Defining MERS.  In its rationale, the Court came to terms with the reality that “about 60% of the country’s residential mortgages are recorded in the name of MERS rather than in the name of the bank, trust, or company that actually has a meaningful economic interest in the repayment of the debt.”  The Court pronounced that “a MERS member bank appoints MERS as its agent for service of process in any foreclosure proceeding on a property for which MERS holds the mortgage.”  The Court found that:

the relationship between Citimortgage and MERS was one of principal and agent.  Clearly, one of the primary purposes of that agency relationship was to facilitate efficient service of process.  . . .  By designating MERS as an agent for service of process, as Irwin did in the Barabas mortgage, lenders can have their cake and eat it too; they free themselves from burdensome, expensive recording requirements but still receive notice when another lienholder seeks to foreclose on a property in which they have a security interest.

Senior mortgage survives.  The core question in Citimortgage was whether ReCasa’s failure to name MERS as a defendant impacted the rights, if any, of Citimortgage, which at some point appears to have acquired the senior mortgage.  Although the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision in favor of ReCasa, the Supreme Court ruled for Citimortgage.  ReCasa’s failure to name MERS as a defendant or, more specifically, failure to serve MERS with a summons and complaint, prevented ReCasa from terminating the senior mortgage and leapfrogging into the first lien position.  In short, the judgment was void as to Citimortgage. 

Next week, I’ll explain how the Court in Citimortgage circumvented two foreclosure statutes that clearly supported ReCasa’s position.