The Kansas Court of Appeals has rejected a challenge to a
lender's designation of MERS as nominee on a mortgage.
Plaintiffs/appellants, a husband and wife who defaulted on their
home mortgage loan, challenged the standing of the bank to
foreclose on the property based on a so-called "splitting of
the note and mortgage" that allegedly resulted from a series
of assignments of the note between MERS members while MERS itself
remained the mortgagee of record "as nominee for the lender
and its successors and assigns." Citing recent Kansas Supreme
Court precedent affirming the operation of MERS as nominee for a
series of successor lenders, the Court, applying basic principles
of contract interpretation, held that the language of the mortgage
itself, which designated MERS "as nominee for the lender and
its successors and assigns," was sufficient to create an
agency relationship between MERS and the foreclosing bank as a
"downstream assignee" of plaintiffs' note, such that
the
