General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Fannie Mae claims to have owned my mortgage a month BEFORE we bought the house! [View all]Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)Recording assignments is different than recording the mortgage itself.
Neither Fannie nor the trusts accept mortgages that have not been recorded per state law. Now that requirement exists as a stipulation in the purchasing and trust agreements (which give Fannie or other trustees the right to force the seller to rebuy the purchased mortgage if it has not been recorded), and there may have been mortgages that were not recorded.
But most mortgages were recorded. In some areas, the courthouses got so backed up that they may have been recorded later. Some originators in some places where that happened were recording other documents early to show that they were going to record a mortgage because of that problem.
Assignments can be recorded later, after the fact. But mortgages are recorded just about as quickly as the clerks get to them.