So the people in the story had an obligation: to keep paying their mortgage on time. The banks also had an obligation: to follow all local and state rules rega

So the people in the story had an obligation: to keep paying their mortgage on time. The banks also had an obligation: to follow all local and state rules regarding liens on property. Should the mortgage be sold the local county clerk would need to be informed, forms would need to be filled out, possibly a fee need to be paid. But they didn't. Instead they used MERS to make transferring mortgages webscale. Who owns a debt seems like something that should be quickly and easily determined. This helps avoid problems like "I've been paying bank A for years, bank B just showed up and said I should have been paying since last year!" (and if you're reading student loan horror stories, that's a common refrain). For mortgages (a secured debt) it seems like the county clerk office should hold the canonical answer. But that stopped being true. Maybe the homeowners here shouldn't get off scott free, but maybe the banks shouldn't either.