WHEN DID THE TRUST ACQUIRE THE NOTES AND MORTGAGES -By LYNN SZYMONIAK

In 2010, mortgage bankers involved with mortgage-backed securities

adopted a mantra: “The mortgage follows the note.” Tom Deutsch,

Executive Director of the American Securitization Forum (“ASF”),

appeared before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and in speeches

to mortgage bankers, to argue that $7 trillion dollars of securitized

mortgage debt was transferred in a legally sound matter.

The mantra became necessary as revelations piled up that mortgages

had not been assigned to mortgage-backed trusts in the manner

described in the trusts documents. The most important trust

document, the “Pooling and Servicing Agreement (“PSA”), spells out

in the definitions section that “mortgage file” documents include the

promissory note, the mortgage, a mortgage assignment and a title

insurance policy. The trusts promised investors that they would obtain

these documents for each loan in the pool of loans that make up the

trusts.

untrasnferrednotes