Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
There’s an internet video telling people they must “accept the deed” in order to perfect title to their homes. Until you accept the deed, you’re merely a tenant at sufferance with no rights. But once you accept the deed, then you become the assignee of the prior owner’s title, and his prior owner’s title, all the way back to the United States government land grant. That’s important, because original land grants give “allodial title” which is title free from all encumbrances.
And that means the bank can’t foreclose your mortgage. It’s not an encumbrance on the land. You might owe the money on the note, but they can’t use the mortgage to take away your home.
It’s ridiculous, of course. Yes, the original land grant was allodial in the sense that it was free of any claims from the federal government. But once you acquire the land, there’s nothing saying you can’t encumber it yourself by, for example, giving a mortgage to pledge the land as security for a loan. You gave up the allodial character of the land when you signed the mortgage.
During the foreclosure crisis, we had people showing up at the County Recorder’s office wanting to “accept their deed” so they could stop the foreclosure. Desperate people grasp at straws, they believe there’s got to be a way to save the house, got to be a form they can file, some legal trickery that will allow them to hang on just a little bit longer and maybe even turn this thing around.
Joe Doakes
She’s like “Elmer Gantry” without the style.