Court Report

In a decision reversing a state trial court’s decision, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department upheld most of the title insurance regulations issued by the state’s Department of Financial Services in late 2017. The regulations were the subject of scrutiny, with the New York Assembly Standing Committee on Insurance holding a hearing on the regulations before the New York State Land Title Association and two title insurance agents filed suit against DFS. Read on for more details.

A New Jersey appellate court affirmed a lower court’s judgment of $1.3 million in favor of a title company as subrogee for the buyer of an apartment building after it was discovered the sellers presented a false discharge of a $1.1 million lien on the property. Read on for more details.

In an effort to address perceived abuses of the title industry, a New Orleans attorney sued Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, seeking a writ of mandamus to compel him to include information on the title industry in his annual reporting to Congress or to declare that title insurance is not insurance under federal law. Read on for more details.

After funding litigation and eventually a settlement over errors in title policies issued by one of its agents, a title insurer sued the title agency for breach of contract. The title agent later moved to dismiss. Read on for more details.

A senior man from Long Beach, Calif., filed suit against a title insurer which prepared a preliminary report and issued a title policy for a transaction in which a fraudster took the man’s property, alleging that the company assisted the fraudster in so doing. After a trial court ruled in favor of sustaining the title insurer’s demurrer, the case went before a California court of appeals. Read on for more details.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland heard a class action complaint alleging that a real estate office and a title company violated RESPA through an illegal kickback scheme by which the real estate agent received unearned fees for referring business to the settlement agent. More than three years after a filing for summary judgment, the district court ruled on the case. Read on for more details.

After purchasing property in Wheaton, Ill., a company discovered that there were unpaid sanitary district liens against the title to the property and that the legal description improperly included a portion of the property that had been dedicated to the city of Wheaton many years earlier. It filed suit against its title insurer, bringing three claims including a claim for negligent misrepresentation. The title company moved to dismiss that count against it. Read on for more details.

A title insurer and the surety of a notary public argued over which limitation period was applicable to an action the title insurer brought against the surety based on the notary’s failure to personally witness the signatures affixed to a document upon which she had placed her notarial attestation and seal. Read on for more details.

An appellate court reversed and remanded a title malpractice case, determining that the trial judge was wrong to deny reconsideration of his decision to grant the defendant title agency’s motion for summary judgment, saying “justice cried out for the extension” of reconsideration. Read on for more details.

In a matter of first impression, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania determined whether to grant a creditor’s request for enlargement of time to file proof of claim on the ground that it did not receive notice of the debtor’s Chapter 13 case until after the deadline to file claims had passed. Read on for more details.