Land fraud and inappropriate dealings in an electronic environment : An Australian and New Zealand perspective

The thesis presented in this paper is that the land fraud committed by Matthew Perrin in Queensland and inflicted upon Roger Mildenhall in Western Australia demonstrates the need for urgent procedural reform to the conveyancing process. Should this not occur, then calls to reform the substantive principles of the Torrens system will be heard throughout the jurisdictions that adopt title by registration, particularly in those places where immediate indefeasibility is still the norm. This paper closely examines the factual matrix behind both of these frauds, and asks what steps should have been taken to prevent them occurring. With 2012 bringing us Australian legislation embedding a national e-conveyancing system and a new Land Transfer Act for New Zealand we ask what legislative measures should be introduced to minimise the potential for such fraud. In undertaking this study, we reflect on whether the activities of Perrin and the criminals responsible for stealing Mildenhall's land would have succeeded under the present system for automated registration utilised in New Zealand

The Paper Chase: Securitization, Foreclosure, and the Uncertainty of Mortgage Title

The mortgage foreclosure crisis raises legal questions as important as its economic impact. Questions that were straightforward and uncontroversial a generation ago today threaten the stability of a $13 trillion mortgage market: Who has standing to foreclose? If a foreclosure was done improperly, what is the effect? And what is the proper legal method for transferring mortgages? These questions implicate the clarity of title for property nationwide and pose a too-big-to-fail problem for the courts. The legal confusion stems from the existence of competing systems for establishing title to mortgages and transferring those rights. Historically, mortgage title was established and transferred through the public demonstration regimes of UCC Article 3 and land recordation systems. This arrangement worked satisfactorily when mortgages were rarely transferred. Mortgage finance, however, shifted to securitization, which involves repeated bulk transfers of mortgages. To facilitate securitization, deal architects developed alternative contracting regimes for mortgage title: UCC Article 9 and MERS, a private mortgage registry. These new regimes reduced the cost of securitization by dispensing with demonstrative formalities, but at the expense of reduced clarity of title, which raised the costs of mortgage enforcement. This trade-off benefitted the securitization industry at the expense of securitization investors because it became apparent only subsequently with the rise in mortgage foreclosures. The harm, however, has not been limited to securitization investors. Clouded mortgage title has significant negative externalities on the economy as a whole. This Article proposes reconciling the competing title systems through an integrated system of note registration and mortgage recordation, with compliance as a prerequisite to foreclosure. Such a system would resolve questions about standing, remove the potential cloud to real-estate title, and facilitate mortgage financing by clarifying property rights

Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification: Franz Kafka's Solution to Illegal Immigration

In last summer's debate over immigration reform, Congress treated a national electronic employment eligibility verification (EEV) system as a matter of near consensus. Intended to strengthen internal enforcement of the immigration laws, electronic EEV is an Internet-based employee vetting system that the federal government would require every employer to use. Broad immigration reform failed before Congress thoroughly considered national EEV, but the lines of debate have been drawn. Advocates in Congress will try to attach a nationwide worker registration system to any immigration bill Congress considers, and the Bush administration recently announced steps to promote such a system.A mandatory national EEV system would have substantial costs yet still fail to prevent illegal immigration. It would deny a sizable percentage of law-abiding American citizens the ability to work legally. Deemed ineligible by a database, millions each year would go pleading to the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration for the right to work. By increasing the value of committing identity fraud, EEV would cause that crime's rates to rise. Creating an accurate EEV system would require a national identification (ID) system, costing about $20 billion to create and hundreds of millions more per year to operate. Even if it were free, the country should reject a national ID system. It would cause law-abiding American citizens to lose more of their privacy as government records about them grew and were converted to untold new purposes. "Mission creep" all but guarantees that the federal government would use an EEV system to extend federal regulatory control over Americans' lives even further

Mortgage Foreclosures in Atlanta: Patterns and Policy Issues

Metropolitan Atlanta is experiencing a foreclosure boom as the number of failed mortgages more than doubled in less than five years, between 2000 and 2005. These foreclosures impose significant costs not only on borrowers and lenders, but also on municipal governments, neighboring homeowners and others with a financial interest in nearby properties. As a result, foreclosure avoidance strategies must involve not only federal, state and local public agencies, but also responsible mortgage industry officials, consumer groups, and community-based, not-for profit organizations. This report was commissioned by Doug Dylla at NeighborWorks America to help build awareness of foreclosure problems and craft a comprehensive foreclosure-avoidance strategy for metropolitan Atlanta. The work presented here serves as a companion to the Foreclosure Prevention Forum cosponsored by NeighborWorks America and the Atlanta Federal Reserve on May 23, 2005. The forum brought together more than 150 leaders from the mortgage industry, state and local government, the advocacy community, and academic and policy researchers. These participants generated a variety of collaborative approaches to address issues related to mortgage failures and foreclosures in the Atlanta region.The report was written and researched by Mark Duda and William Apgar. It expands on research presented by Duda at the forum and is intended to characterize the current situation with respect to mortgage failures in metropolitan Atlanta, as well as previous research completed by the authors on foreclosure avoidance in Chicago and Los Angeles. The foreclosure data used in this report were generously provided by EquiSystems, LLC, producer of the Atlanta Foreclosure Report