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For those of you who have been following the MERS debacle, here's an excellent commentary entitled "Op-Ed: 60 Million Mortgages May Have Fatal Flaws" by George W. Mantor:

"RISMEDIA, October 5, 2009-The latest chapter in the mortgage meltdown is being written in court, as one by one, judges are putting a halt to foreclosures. The latest was a recent Kansas Supreme Court case. In Landmark National Bank v. Kesler, the court held that a nominee company called MERS had no standing to bring a foreclosure action.

Nor was Kansas the first. In August 2008, Federal Judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nevada ruled MERS had no standing. 'Indeed, the evidence is to the contrary, the Note has been sold, and the named nominee no longer has any interest in the Note.'

In September of 2008, A California Judge ruling against MERS concluded, 'There is no evidence before the court as to who is the present owner of the Note. The holder of the Note must join in the motion.'

On March 19, 2009, the Supreme Court of Arkansas determined that MERS was not the true beneficiary because the Note had been sold. Alabama and Florida have made similar rulings.

In each case, the reason stems from a fundamental misstep in the handling of Notes and Trust Deeds that runs contrary to established court policies which require that the real parties identify themselves to the court. Each of these cases involved MERS and, in each case, the courts' rationales were almost identical...."

Read more:

http://rismedia.com/2009-09-28/op-ed-60-million-mortgages-may-have-fatal-flaws/#ixzz0U3CTOoH9

The financial ramifications of the MERS debacle will be nothing less than catastrophic in nature as homeowners who have had the "foreclosure gun" pointed to their heads, while greedy banks and attorneys have extracted wind-fall profits, are fighting back with a passion.

Maybe these greedy banks would have been better off cutting a deal with homeowners in a the same manner as Uncle Sam cut the "bailout" deals with them.

What goes around, comes around.

- Ed Smith, Publisher
The EHS Letter Manual