‘MERS morass’ is hanging up negotiations on foreclosure settlement'

from wapo........

"State and federal officials negotiating a settlement with the nation’s biggest banks over shoddy foreclosure practices are hung up on how they should deal with a Reston-based company that has acted as a proxy for financial firms throughout the country for more than a decade.

Some officials refer to the dilemma as the “MERS morass,” referring to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, whose vast but controversial registry contains roughly 65 million mortgages.

The pending multibillion-dollar settlement with banks centers on “robosigned” documents and court filings and other problems related to mortgage servicing that caused a national uproar last fall. Much of that flawed paperwork flowed through MERS"..........READ MORE