News By Edition

A recent title agent case in Pennsylvania struck a chord with me. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania suspended the license of an attorney who was charged with violating the rules of professional conduct for allegedly collecting $88,000 for title insurance policies after being terminated as an issuing agent.

In spite of burgeoning identity theft, consumers are often required to provide non-public personal information (NPI) to transact a deal. And they have a reasonable expectation that the information they are sharing will be protected and not used in an unauthorized manner. In no situation is this expectation higher than during the purchase of a home. Lenders are held to high standards when conducting their role in the mortgage lending process, and they expect the third-party title agents and attorneys conducting the real estate closings to take just as much care with their consumers’ information as they do. During a recent webinar, Todd Hougaard, director of sales, GreenFolders, and Michael Volin, senior counsel, deputy ethics and compliance officer, Title Resource Group, shared several tips for protecting this valuable information.

With advanced bank theft and identity theft schemes becoming more and more prevalent, it is critical that title agents protect their customers’ non-public personal information with the utmost care and protection. Lenders, consumers, regulators and legislators are counting on it. In part one of our Lock it down series, we focused on protecting physical NPI. In the second half of our two part series, we share tips about protecting network NPI. Read on for more details.

Lenders are very concerned with how their customers’ non-public personal information is treated, as are consumers, regulators and legislators. This is why it is important for title agents to protect this information when it is entrusted to them. In part one of a two-part series on tips agents can implement to protect NPI, industry experts discuss the protection of physical NPI. Read on for more details.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court determined whether a title insurer is “in for one, in for all” after its insured was sued for claims related to a title defect the insurer’s agent caused. Find out what the SJC determined.

A Maryland woman was found guilty by a jury of four felony charges, including conspiracy and bank fraud, after a two-week trial. The woman would find straw buyers and property in order for her co-conspirators to obtain mortgages through false loan applications, forged documents and fraudulent settlements. Read on for more details.

The North Dakota legislature adopted a bill that clarifies the effect of not recording a conveyance of real property, in addition to the priority of the first recorded conveyance. Read on for more details.

Does a title insurer have a duty to the person who unknowingly purchased a fraudulent mortgage from the unsuspecting loan originator? That question was addressed by the Second District Court of Appeals of California when the purchaser of a falsified mortgage sued several parties to the fraudulent transaction, including the title underwriter who handled the escrow and issued the title policy. Read on to find out how the court answered the question.

After a multi-family development project fell through because of zoning issues, the developer sued the title company for not finding the defect. While that case was going on, the guarantor of the loan sued the title company, other underwriters and the American Land Title Association for allegedly putting a provision in standard title policies that would prevent coverage of the defect. Read on to find out how the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia handled the case.

The Idaho legislature has adopted a bill that clarifies the effect a rescission of a trustee’s deed has on the affected parties. Read on for more details.

In a recently released bulletin by the Colorado Division of Insurance, the division evaluated the use of title insurance rates insurers characterized as “centralized” or “streamlined.” Finding these rates to be unfair and discriminatory, the division ordered these rates not be used, effective immediately. Read on for more details.

A group of Maryland homeowners filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland against a title agency and a real estate brokerage for allegedly engaging in a sham marketing and employment scheme whereby the real estate brokerage received more than half a million dollars in illegal kickbacks. Read on for more details.

The Illinois General Assembly adopted a bill that will, effective immediately, add new recording fees for property documents in the state. Read on for more details.

Four Pennsylvania residents, plead guilty to their roles in a mortgage fraud scheme that involved settlement attorneys, appraisers, mortgage brokers and others. The multi-faceted mortgage fraud conspiracy involved hundreds of properties and tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans. Read on for more details.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau went live with the nation’s largest public database of federal consumer financial complaints, opening up to consumers across the country information on more than 90,000 individual complaints on financial products and services. Read on for more details.

A Nebraska title company agreed to pay 24 closers back wages following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. The company was found to have violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and record-keeping provisions. Read on to find out how they violated the act.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania suspended the license of an attorney who was charged with violating the rules of professional conduct for allegedly collecting $88,000 for title insurance policies after being terminated as an issuing agent. Read on for more details.

Nevada is considering a bill authorizing title insurers to provide closing protection letters to parties to a real estate transaction. Read on for more details.

Mississippi has adopted a bill that will allow affidavits of scrivener’s error to be filed to correct certain errors in instruments affecting title to real estate. Read on for more details.

Five men, including two attorneys, were indicted for fraud schemes involving several Northwest Arkansas real estate transactions and defrauding a federal bankruptcy court. Read on for more details.

Who is responsible when a title agent’s escrow account gets hit by cyber fraud? The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri answered that question in a case brought by a title agent who lost $440,000 from a cyber fraud attack, then sued its bank under the Funds Transfers Act. Read on for the court’s conclusion.

A Georgia real estate attorney was sentenced to time in prison for transferring money wired into his escrow account for several real estate closings into his personal account to use for various expenses. He had already been disbarred by the Georgia Bar. Read on for more details.

The Nevada legislature is considering revising provisions governing an action to declare void a trustee’s sale. It also specifies the circumstances under which a purchaser in a trustee’s sale is a bona fide purchaser and therefore when the failure to comply with the provisions of law governing the trustee’s sale does not affect the validity in favor of a bona fide purchaser. Read on for more details.

The Minnesota legislature has adopted a bill that will provide for an affidavit of survivorship, as well as the release or partial release of a mortgage lien. Read on for more details.

October Research LLC, announced that the deadline for the prestigious Joe Casa Awards nominations is March 31. Real estate, mortgage and settlement services professionals are invited to nominate colleagues for awards in leadership, innovation or philanthropy.

A woman bought property in Naugatuck, Conn., in a foreclosure sale, not knowing about the lack of legal access to the property. While the issue of coverage of this title defect was going on, she passed away, leaving the property to her husband in a quitclaim deed before her death. Read on to find out how this impacted the case.