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Colorado adopts new standards of conduct rules
Posted Date: Monday, August 15, 2016
The Colorado Division of Insurance has adopted new regulations regarding title insurance standards of conduct. These rules touch on historical affiliated business arrangements, competition, business development, and closing protection letters and are the latest step in the division’s overhaul of its title insurance regulations. Read on for more details.
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Privacy issues tackled under TRID amendments
Posted Date: Friday, July 29, 2016
One of the questions lenders and settlement agents have had since the implementation of the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule has been whether they are permitted to share certain disclosure information with other parties to the transaction, namely sellers and real estate brokers. In its proposed updates to TRID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau addressed those concerns, among a number of other issues. Read on for more details.
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Title insurance fix missing from proposal
Posted Date: Monday, August 1, 2016
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau addressed much in its 293-page proposal for amendments to the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule, but for the title industry, one thing was missing — a change in the way title insurance premiums are calculated. Read on for more details.
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Bank, title insurer dispute coverage under CPL
Posted Date: Monday, July 25, 2016
After discovering its title agent failed to record its mortgages with the county recorders, a bank filed a claim under its closing protection letter. It eventually filed a breach of contract suit against its title insurer, which moved for summary judgment. Read on for more details.
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FinCEN expands title insurance GTO
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2016
After the success of geographic targeting orders from earlier this year, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced another Geographic Targeting Order that will temporarily require U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind shell companies used to pay all cash for high-end residential real estate in major metropolitan areas across the country. Read on for more details.
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Connecticut adopts foreclosure alternatives statute
Posted Date: Monday, August 15, 2016
Connecticut has adopted a law that will, among other things, facilitate alternatives to foreclosure that are mutually agreeable to mortgagors and mortgagees with senior encumbrances. Read on for more details.
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Industry trades seek suspension of PACE guidance
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Eleven trade associations have sent a letter urging the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Department of Veterans Affairs to suspend their recently revised guidance on Property Assessed Clean Energy loans, citing lending and consumer protection concerns. Read on for more details.
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Illinois changes lis pendens filings
Posted Date: Monday, August 8, 2016
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation announced that there will be a change in the way all lis pendens notices must be filed with the state. Read on for more details.
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Index shows no sign of stopping
Posted Date: Monday, August 1, 2016
In its Loan Application Defect Index for June 2016, First American Financial Corp. reported a continued decrease, continuing a three-month trend that First American’s chief economist says shows no sign of stopping. Read on for more details.
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AG files UPL suit vs foreclosure rescue group
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2016
The New Mexico Office of the Attorney General filed a lawsuit and sought a temporary restraining order against a New Mexico attorney and a group of non-attorneys who the attorney general alleges take advantage of consumers in financial distress and who are trying to avoid a foreclosure on their homes. Read on for more details.
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Lender sues insurer for coverage of title dispute
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2016
An insured lender filed suit against its title insurer, claiming it breached the policy by refusing to compensate the lender for loss of real property after a municipality obtained title in state court. The insured had obtained the property through foreclosure before the municipality foreclosed on the property for borrower’s unpaid assessments. Read on for more details.
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Texas man indicted for mortgage, tax fraud
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Special Agents with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation and the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General (FHFA-OIG) arrested a Dallas man on various tax and mortgage fraud offenses. Among other things, he is charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, as well as five counts of subscribing to a false and fraudulent individual income tax return. Read on for more details.
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Colorado appoints new deputy executive director of DORA
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) Executive Director Joe Neguse announced that he has appointed current Financial Services Commissioner Patricia Salazar as the department’s new deputy executive director. Read on for more about the new appointee.
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Federal commission seeks input on cybersecurity
Posted Date: Monday, August 15, 2016
The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity is requesting information on current and future states of cybersecurity. Read on for more about the commission and the information it is requesting.
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Real estate salesperson found guilty of mortgage fraud
Posted Date: Monday, August 15, 2016
After a four-day trial, a jury in Sacramento found a Roseville, Calif., woman guilty in a mortgage fraud scheme involving three properties. She was found guilty of six counts of bank fraud, six counts of making a false statement to a financial institution, one count of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft. Read on for more details.
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Title insurer sues agent for failure to subordinate pre-existing mortgage
Posted Date: Monday, August 15, 2016
After covering a claim regarding the priority of a third-party’s mortgage on property in Michigan, a title insurer sued its title agent for failing to obtain the subordination or release of a pre-existing mortgage on the property. The title agent argued that the fault lies with the attorney the title insurer hired to handle the priority dispute. Read on for more details.
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Lender sues title companies for six-month delay in recording
Posted Date: Monday, August 15, 2016
After discovering the mortgagee sold the property without his knowledge before his mortgage was recorded on property in Chicago, the man who held the mortgage filed suit against the title companies involved for failing to timely record the mortgage.
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Law firm owner pleads guilty to mortgage modification scheme
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2016
A Brea, Calif., man pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his role as the owner and operator of a multi-million dollar fraudulent mortgage modification scheme that posed as a successful law firm to defraud struggling homeowners.
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Conference coverage: Live from ILTA
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2016
During the Indiana Land Title Association’s Annual Convention in Indianapolis from Aug. 8-9, attendees not only were able to brush up on sales and business practices, but they got an inside look at the cybersecurity threats directly impacting the industry, as well as the steps to protect themselves should they become victims of cybertheft. The Legal Description was able to attend and bring back several insights from ILTA.
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Appellate court asked to strike Nevada HOA ruling
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Wells Fargo asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to declare unconstitutional a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that said a foreclosure on an HOA lien extinguishes an earlier-recorded security interest, even though the HOA lien was recorded later. Read on to see how the appellate court ruled.
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Illinois amends recording act
Posted Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law SB 2805, which amends the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act effective Jan. 1, 2017. Read on for the details.
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California Senate approves Survivor Bill of Rights
Posted Date: Monday, August 8, 2016
Days before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized mortgage servicing rules that primarily focused on foreclosure, loss mitigation and successor in interest procedures, the California Senate approved its own version of the bill. Read on for details of the bill and its next steps through the legislative process.
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CFPB puts focus on relationships, compliance
Posted Date: Monday, August 8, 2016
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau stepped directly into the title and settlement services space in April 2012, when it issued a bulletin detailing third-party compliance standards and expectations for financial institutions. How has the move changed the industry? Read on to see how Prairie Title’s Frank Pelligrini, Stewart Title’s Dawn Lewallen and Marvin Stone, Gilroy Bailey Trumble’s Monica Gilroy and other discuss the bureau’s effect on the industry.
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CFPB proposes TRID changes
Posted Date: Monday, August 1, 2016
The calculation of title insurance on the new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) forms will not change, according to proposed updates from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced. However, privacy concerns did make the cut. Read on for details of the proposals.
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Lien software company, bar association reach settlement in UPL dispute
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2016
A software company that provides lien management services for members of the construction industry and a local bar association have settled a dispute regarding unauthorized practice of law claims against the company. Read on for more details.
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Mortgage, note holder seek quiet title against missed mortgagors
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2016
After discovering the mortgage on property in Massachusetts did not include the owner’s adult children, who were listed on the deed as joint tenants, a mortgagee and the holder of the note filed a quiet title suit, seeking to reform the mortgage to include all three as mortgagors. Read on to find out why the Massachusetts Land Court called the error a unilateral mistake by the closing attorney on behalf of the mortgagees.
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Kentucky construction owner indicted for filing false liens
Posted Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2016
The owner of a Fort Mitchell, Ky., construction company was indicted by a grand jury in Kentucky for allegedly devising and executing a scheme to obtain funds from two banks by submitting false lien waivers and contractor’s affidavits to receive incremental construction draws, which the indictment alleges he wrongfully diverted to pay others as well as himself. Read on for more details.
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Hawaii Legislature amends escrow depositories statute
Posted Date: Monday, July 25, 2016
The Hawaii Legislature adopted a bill that would clarify the escrow depositories law by, among other things, authorizing the commissioner of financial institutions to use NMLS for its escrow depositories program, and adding criminal history record checks to its requirements for licensure and change in control applications. Read on for more details.
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Prosecutor in major mortgage fraud case earns appointment
Posted Date: Monday, July 25, 2016
The lead prosecutor in a major mortgage fraud case, with 22 years of experience, was appointed chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York. Read on for more details.
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