The Gathering Storm

What we're seeing now in the foreclosure crisis is nothing to what's to come. Right now, lawyers are trying to figure out whether foreclosure documents have been properly filed, signed, and notarized, as well as whether foreclosure is even warranted, since there have now been multiple cases of homeowners being foreclosed upon without ever missing a mortgage payment.

But that's not the real problem.

The problem is that even when the homeowners are delinquent in their payments, even when they abandon the home because the actual value is less than the dollar amount they agreed to pay, even when the foreclosure papers are perfectly signed, filed, and notarized, there is still one problem that no one can fix:

No one owns the mortgage.

Which means no one can take it back.

When that single fact hits the general public, chaos will ensue. And we're simply not prepared for the consequences. It's time for the United States government - who happens to be our biggest investor in mortgages right now, since Wall Street dumped all those dwindling assets on them while the getting was good - to give up the idea of foreclosing and start renegotiating mortgage payments.

Being sure, this time, to put someone's name on the line that says "Mortgagee."

Someone other than MERS.