Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
\nThere\u2019s an internet video telling people they must \u201caccept the deed\u201d in order to perfect title to their home<\/span>s<\/span>.\u00a0 Until you accept the deed, you\u2019re merely a tenant at sufferance with no rights. \u00a0But once you accept the deed, then you become the assignee of the prior owner\u2019s title, and his prior owner\u2019s title, all the way back to the United States government land grant. That\u2019s important, because original land grants give \u201callodial title\u201d which is title free from all encumbrances.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>And that means the bank can\u2019t foreclose your mortgage.\u00a0 It\u2019s not an encumbrance on the land. \u00a0You might owe the money on the note, but they can\u2019t use the mortgage to take away your home.<\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s ridiculous, of course.\u00a0 Yes, the original land grant was allodial in the sense that it was free of any claims from the federal government.\u00a0 But once you acquire the land, there\u2019s nothing saying you can\u2019t encumber it yourself by, for example, giving a mortgage to pledge the land as security for a loan. \u00a0You gave up the allodial character of the land when you signed the mortgage.<\/span><\/p>\n
During the foreclosure crisis, we had people showing up at the County Recorder\u2019s office wanting to \u201caccept their deed\u201d so they could stop the foreclosure.\u00a0 Desperate people grasp at straws, they believe there\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n