bubba99 wrote:I found an

[urbanrealtor]

[quote=bubba99]I found an article that seems to agree that proper recording of mortgage ownership has changed. The applicable text being “Titles and mortgages on real property are officially recorded in county clerks’ offices, a slow-moving, old-fashioned, deliberate world of ink, paper, and filing cabinets. The process has been perfected over a millennium, going back to the Domesday Book, the survey of English property completed in 1086 for William the Conqueror. This paper-based system, though admirably accurate and permanent, wasn’t equipped for the era of rapid-fire refinancing and securitization. When over 8 million new and used homes are sold per year, as at the height of the boom, and most loans are packaged into securities, you need a lot of clerks.”

The whole article is here:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_43/b4200009860564.htm%5B/quote%5D

One should bear in mind that CA does not take its legal cues from England.

It takes them (at least partially) from Castillo and
Aragon as a property of the Spanish Empire.

Additionally, California stopped using mortgages in the 70’s.

We now use trust deeds (recorded) and notes (not so much).

This is, in part, because judicial foreclosure is too cumbersome.

Trust deeds create a trust that requires no actual court action.

Just exercise of its various clauses.