Assignment of Mortgage to MERS

MERS does the paperwork and filings for some mortgage holders. There's a Wiki page for it.

The Wiki page didn't give enough info. I have switched my mortgage to another bank and don't have a MERS assignment. I can't imagine that Chase would "sell" the mortgage to Bank of America.

"Some" lenders, not all. Read a mortgate with MERS's name on it. It'll say Citibank or whomever is the lender, and "For purposes of recording this mortgage, MERS is the mortgagee of record." MERS takes care of recording, so lenders don't have to keep track of the processes in thousands of counties.

NWT, any thoughts on the assignment from Chase to BofA? That doesn't line up with a typical sale, nor a refinance, right? It would make sense if Chase sold a batch of mortgages to BofA but when the timing lines up with being for sale and then off-market, that seems like too much of a coincidence?

Not at all unusual for banks to sell individual mortgages to each other, one at a time, or as a bundle with common characteristics (region, duration, rating, etc.), and the buyer bank may then securitize the income stream.

During the housing crisis there were lots of problems with MERS during foreclosures as there were flaws in the recording and paperwork to properly record title in those thousands of counties as the loans were traded around. The industry wasn't quite ready for a nominee entity to hold 'title', mostly because of the varying legal requirements in all the jurisdictions (unlike the securities markets where DTCC has been doing it successfully for quite a while).