"Jackie Brophy" writes:
I have two of these Citizen Bank's home equity refis, prior to my last refi
which was with GMAC. When I closed on the traditional GMAC mortgage, the
lawyer who presided over this last refi warned me about the Citizen's home
equity "mortgages" to make sure I received the discharge notes and also to
make sure that "I" went and had them recorded at the registry. He never
indicated that Citizen's was by law supposed to do this, since he told me
it was now my responsibility.

It sounds to me like this lawyer wasn't doing his job.
Lenders register liens on property to protect themselves.
It's important to the lender of the first mortgage for it to
be recorded as the primary lien, but that can't happen unless
all previous liens are discharged and the discharges are
recorded. It sounds like the lawyer you were dealing with was
representing GMAC, in which case it doesn't seem like he
represented his client's interests adequately -- if he didn't
make sure your previous liens were discharged and recorded, he
couldn't have registered the GMAC mortgage as the primary
lien.