The Ignorant Investor

CNBC writer John Carney thinks its okay for a bank to foreclose on a homeowner even when the bank can't prove it owns a security interest in the house:

CitiMortgage modified D’Amelio’s mortgage but she defaulted anyway. Now she claims that Citi cannot foreclose upon her because Fannie Mae is the owner of her mortgage. Her lawyer argues that the mortgage was improperly assigned to Citi, and is contesting the foreclosure on those grounds.

Let’s grant D’Amelio not only the facts but also her interpretation of foreclosure law. Perhaps Citi, which purchased the mortgage in late 2006 and sold it to Fannie Mae in early 2007, shouldn’t be able to foreclose. Maybe the MERS system somehow vitiated any security interest attached to her house through the mortgage.

It's as though CNBC views the idea of title, property rights, proper legal procedure, as just these lame restrictions on a bank's right to do whatever it wants.