no problems in who "owns" the mortgage - and who has standing to foreclose. In theory.

The idea was that the original documents would be physically transferred to a trustee (e.g., a national bank with trust powers). The servicing of those mortgages would be transferred to a mortgage servicing company - payments, discharges of mortgages when paid, etc.

Now, any right (or obligation) in a mortgage can be assigned. That, BTW, is the concept behind "stripping". To validly assign a right, you need a written assignment.

One right is the right to foreclose. That right could be assigned to the bank trustee with the original documents, or to the mortgage servicing company, or to a third party for that matter. The point is that there has to be documented paperwork at each step.

I've handled several matters, well before the present debacle, which involved "mortgage packages". For obvious reasons, I cannot go into the specific facts.

My conclusion reached, about 5-10 years ago, was that the entire system was completely FUBAR - original paperwork lost; step by step documentation missing; regulations that were decades behind modern banking practices; and regulators not regulating because they didn't know what to do - or were making up (I mean that literally) "regulations" to fit their desired outcome. Everybody was making a bundle - and, so, nobody gave a damn.

The following is not a recommendation of the product (foreclosure advice) being sold on the following webpage, but it does have a good article on:

Contesting a Foreclosure Lawsuit - Who Owns the Mortgage ?

http://www.foreclosurefish.com/blog/index.php?id=474

Obviously, the situation I saw 5-10 years ago has only gotten worse.