Can you use a deed of trust in a mortgage state?

[Michael King]

Hi everyone,

    Long story short, there is a gentleman who called me up on one of my ads to tell me that he got a good job out west and wanted to sell his house quickly. The house is located in Massachusetts (a judicial state). I asked him who was on the deed, and he informed me that he and his uncle were both on the deed. When I got off the phone with him, I looked up the property with the registry of deeds and found that it was some sort of holding company based out of Texas that was on the deed.

    I called him back and basically said, "hey, what's going on? I thought you were on the deed with your uncle? Who's this Texas holding company on the deed?"

    His reply was that the company is the mortgage lender, which brought me to my next question. If MA is a judicial state, why would the lender be on the deed and not the homeowner? Which brought me to my next question. I looked it up, and Texas appears to be largely non-judicial... If this lender is based out of Texas, is it possible that the homeowner could have a deed of trust and not a mortgage because the lender is based out of state?

    I wasn't sure whether the lending method was based off the state the property is in, or the state the lender is in?

    Thanks,

                   Mike