Last day of the month and we're dealing with a crazy lender from California....

Had a closing scheduled for 8:30 am this morning. Late yesterday afternoon, the lender stopped communicating with us, we had no documents or final HUD, and so we contacted the borrower and asked to re-schedule the appointment for later in the day.What happened yesterday afternoon? Here's a behind the scenes peek into the world of a title agent:Having preliminary instructions in hand Tracey, a

RESPA and Seller Liability

Buyers and Realtors should know that RESPA prohibits a seller from requiring that a buyer use a particular title company. That is, if the transaction falls under the purview of RESPA.Sellers who attempt to intimidate the buyer should read this web page.Class action attorneys have their eyes you. Corporate sellers, beware!

The property has been in the family for decades.

"The seller has assured me the title is clear."This homebuyer should be thankful that his mortgage lender ordered title insurance. The transaction should have closed before the end of December and here we are in late January, hoping to close by month end. What happened? An unforseen title issue.Our seller is the executrix of her father's estate. We'll call her father, Edward Smith. Mr. Smith

PA issues new guidelines for first mortgage lenders

Thank you www.compliancesource.com for the fast heads up. Here's the info.

Transfer Taxes - Updated Deviations

Most municipalities charge 1% of the sale price when ownership transfers. Be sure to check this list of deviations for your municipality.Buyers and seller customarily split transfer taxes, but the matter is entirely negotiable.The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania charges 1% of the sale price.When estimating costs be sure to account for both municipal and state taxes.

Title Insurance Overcharges in PA

The article noted in the previous post has a footnote to visit a web site for information on Title Insurance Overcharges in PA. This link takes you to a class action attorney's site who offers free consultations. I'm not crazy about attorneys who do this kind of work. They make a lot of money under the guise of helping folks. I'd like to offer an alternative solution for recovery of title

Capital Ingenuity Corporation has it all wrong.

Read this article. They say they provide sem services for attorneys and law firms. I must confess my ignorance. I have no idea what sem services are. I hope they are not educational services because Capital Ingenuity Corporation sure doesn’t know anything about title insurance.I don’t even understand the point they are trying to make in this article so it’s hard to even comment except to say I

Dog fence point of contention with neighbor.

I just heard from one of our customers this morning who wants to install a fence for their dog and is limited by an easement along one side of the lot. We closed their purchase transaction in November of 2005. As usual we recommended they get a survey before closing. They opted not to. We searched title and disclosed an easement along the border of their lot. We sent them the title commitment for