Should the Mortgage Follow the Note?

45 Pages Posted: 26 Jul 2014 Last revised: 18 Aug 2014

See all articles by John P. Hunt

John P. Hunt

University of California, Davis - School of Law

Date Written: August 2014

Abstract

The law of mortgage assignment has taken center stage amidst foreclosure crisis, robosigning scandal, and controversy over the Mortgage Electronic Registration System. Yet a concept crucially important to mortgage assignment law, the idea that “the mortgage follows the note,” apparently has never been subjected to a critical analysis in a law review.

This Article makes two claims about that proposition, one positive and one normative. The positive claim is that it has been much less clear than typically assumed that the mortgage follows the note, in the sense that note transfer formalities trump mortgage transfer formalities. “The mortgage follows the note” is often described as a well-established principle of law, when in fact considerable doubt has attended the proposition at least since the middle of the last century.

The normative claim is that it is not clear that the mortgage should follow the note. The Article draws on the theoretical literature of filing and recording to show that there is a case that mortgage assignments should be subject to a filing rule and that “the mortgage follows the note,” to the extent it implies that transferee interests should be protected without filing, should be abandoned.

Whether mortgage recording should in fact be abandoned in favor of the principle “the mortgage follows the note” turns on the resolution of a number of empirical questions. This Article identifies key empirical questions that emerge from its application of principles from the theoretical literature on filing and recording to the specific case of mortgages.

Keywords: commercial law, mortgage, mortgage assignment, promissory note, recording systems, MERS

JEL Classification: K11, K12

Suggested Citation

Hunt, John P., Should the Mortgage Follow the Note? (August 2014). Ohio State Law Journal, Vol. 75, No. 1, 2014, UC Davis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 392, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2471299

John P. Hunt (Contact Author)

University of California, Davis - School of Law ( email )

Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall
Davis, CA CA 95616-5201
United States
(530) 752-5052 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://ratingagencylawblog.wordpress.com/

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