Webster First FCU Monday denied ownership of a mortgage once held by Saugus FCU, which it acquired last year and that is the target of a lawsuit seeking to halt foreclosure proceedings.
“It has nothing to do with us,” said Michael Lussier, president of Webster First, who said Saugus Federal sold the loan in 2006 to Ohio Savings Bank, which was acquired by AmTrust Bank, and the loan has been assigned yet again to New York Community Bank in Westbury, N.Y.
Lussier said he knows nothing about a lawsuit filed by the homeowner, Marco Medina, in state court, then moved to federal court May 2, naming Saugus FCU and MERS, the electronic mortgage registry that was created to keep track of the fast-moving sales and purchases of home loans. Both suits name Saugus FCU and MERS as the defendants and do not name any of the other lenders.
MERS has been targeted in hundreds of lawsuits by borrowers who claim the electronic registry holding tens of millions of loans has lost track of the true ownership of the liens, further complicating foreclosure and modification proceedings.
According to the legal documents, Medina, who lives in the northern Boston suburb of Lynn, Mass., took out a mortgage in 2004 with Saugus FCU, a few miles from his home, for a house in his hometown. That loan was somehow acquired by Ohio Savings Bank, which itself was acquired by AmTrust Bank, then the loan was acquired by New York Community Bank, which bought the remains of AmTrust from the FDIC when it failed in 2009.
Lussier said his credit union, which has acquired Saugus Federal–and thus the member relationship with Medina–and three other credit unions over the past year, was put on notice of the foreclosure proceedings as a result of being the original lien holder but shed the loan more than five years ago and no longer has an interest in the loan. “We don’t have any mortgages with [Medina],” Lussier said Monday.
The borrower is seeking a court order to delay the foreclosure on his home and a rental property while he negotiates a modification on the $312,000 loan on which he is in arrears. Foreclosure auctions on the two properties were slated to be held April 30 and May 1, but the federal court agreed to issue a temporary restraining order delaying the auctions until June 14.
A lawyer for the borrower conceded yesterday that Saugus FCU is named co-defendant on the suit with MERS and said they believed the credit union was holder of the lien.
The lawyer for MERS in the case did not return a phone call seeking comment.
