Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Wells probably sold the loan; if Wells does not appear on the old loan documents then it definitely sold the loan.

You need to understand how a deed of trust works. It is a special form of trust that is much like a mortgage but not exactly. It is nothing like an estate planning trust that would be involved if you died. In a deed of trust the property owner grants bare legal title to the property to the trustee for the benefit of the beneficiary lender. The lender is the beneficiary of the deed of trust. This has nothing to do with being the beneficiary of an express trust or beneficiary of a person's estate when they die. The property owner retains all other legal rights of ownership. The beneficiary is only the beneficiary of the grant of bare legal title. The trust is a limited trust that grants the trustee the power to sell the property at trustee's sale if the beneficiary declares a default under the terms of the loan secured by the deed of trust. The trustee is also obligated to reconvey the deed of trust if the loan is paid off. That is all there is to the trust and that is the only benefit to the beneficiary. When you refinanced your loan, the prior loan was paid off. That obligated the beneficiary to order the trustee to reconvey the deed of trust. What has you confused is that both the beneficiary and the trustee can be changed at any time without any notice to you. The only time any public record or notice to you of a change is required is if there is a default or if you pay off the loan. At some point Wells sold the loan. It may have been sold many times after that. Eventually Carnegie became the owner of the loan. So when it was paid off, they were the ones who substituted the trustee, through MERS, their agent, and then they directed the trustee to reconvey the deed of trust. Once the deed of trust was reconveyed, it was completely without any legal force or effect. So not only did none of the lenders who owned your loan ever have anything more than a right to sell your property if you defaulted, that right entirely went away when MERS substituted the trustee and the trustee signed and recorded the reconveyance you received. Nothing to do with the deed of trust on your old loan has any legal effect of any kind anymore.