The day she thought she paid off her house, she celebrated. Now, she faces eviction.

[NullTuples]

10. In some regions, up to 75% of older 30 yr mortgages have no valid chain of ownership

Somewhat different from the OP as the ones running the scam in the 00's were the mortgage companies themselves and the recording "clearing house" they'd set up called MERS. The purpose was to allow change of ownership of the mortgage without having to refile with the county & pay the required fees. MERS was listed as the owner & the included mortgage companies simply agreed to the changes of ownership being tracked in a database. The original purpose of MERS was to circumvent the state & county laws that say changes in ownership must be recorded with the county. When a mortgage gets split into cash flow and deed holder, and then further split among thousands of investors when the debt gets bundled with countless others & offered as an investment vehicle, those county filing fees would've made the investment unprofitable.

Anyway, MERS effectively breaks the valid, legally-required chain of ownership required to provide the deed at the end of the mortgage. You'll still get one as a piece of paper; it's just that if push ever came to shove, it won't *really* be valid. Likewise, a few homeowners have used that broken chain to stop making payments. However, the outcome of those cases depended highly on the judge or arbitrator involved.