Every once in a while you hear a story that makes you go, “Hmm, how DOES something like that even happen?” It all goes back to the secondary mortgage market and the practice of banks and Wall Street firms buying and selling pools of mortgages – one loan was sold 39 times, according to Kim Nguyen, an acquaintance of Jason’s who practices law in southern California.

Nguyen recounted how he represented a client over a $650,000.00 loan that was being refinanced but ended up in foreclosure court. One of the regulations is the plaintiff must produce the original loan documents. Apparently, this mortgage had been shuttled between buyers so much they couldn’t find the original documents.

Guess what happens when a bank can’t prove in court they are the actual holder of the note? In this case, the judge waived the entire loan! Just like that, there was no more need to refinance because the loan didn’t exist anymore.

Can’t find the loan documents? Doesn’t inspire a lot of faith in the secondary mortgage (vulture) market system. Do stories like this make a difference in the practice? Not likely but one family left court very happy that day.