30 Story Hotel Built in 15 Days
A company in China has just completed a building a 30 story hotel in just 15 days! The 6 minute time-lapse video on U-tube captures the entire process of constructing the building in the Hunan Province from foundation all the way to furnished space with beds. You can see the steel frames for sections of the floor; you can see the tile floor being laid on the sections; you see the giant tinker-toy floor pieces lifted by cranes and tapped into place by workers. You see that the amazing construction is designed to withstand hurricane level winds, with windows that are amazingly energy efficient. Seems to be the best of all worlds.
So, what will happen to construction here over the next decade? Will high quality pre-fabricated materials take over conventional processes due to speed, highest quality of construction, new requirements for Green and enhanced building codes? What industries and trades will grow and what businesses as we know them today will vanish? What new jobs will be created – ones that we can hardly imagine?
American Ingenuity is Still at Work in Courthouses
I was in Michigan last week speaking to an amazing group. The company developed special cameras, made in Germany, to take to Courthouses around the country to image public records. The amazing thing is that their cameras read the humps and bumps in those enormous tract books by refocusing the images as they cross the page. In other words, they don’t have to take the books apart. They work in teams, 24/7, traveling with the cameras to wherever they are needed. Some of the team scan the pages, others carefully proof the images for clarity, and they can even create the grantor grantee books and tract books. I am very proud of these people. Lets keep our jobs in the US and lets continue to invent new and better ways of doing the same old tasks.
State of Delaware Sues MERS
In a new twist, the State of Delaware is suing MERS under the Unlawful and Deceptive Trade Practices Act (UDTPA.) The suit claims that MERS has left for borrowers “no public trail by which anyone can identify the principals or verify the propriety of the (mortgage) transfer.” The private and obscure nature of their database makes it difficult for consumers “to know of or challenge inaccuracies in the MERS System” i.e. – who the heck holds the mortgage and who the heck has the right to foreclose? Read more at Delaware Online
Banks Pursue Deficiency Judgments
The American Bar Journal has a good article on banks going after borrowers for the shortages between mortgage dollars borrowed and what the homes can be sold for. Under the terms of mortgage notes, the borrower promises to repay the entire debt borrowed. But with so many houses under water, the lenders are losing money, and so they are are looking to the borrowers for the difference. Forty-one states in the US allow this. So we need to watch name searches for deficiency judgments. But will this just force more people into bankruptcy – or will they really recoup some money?
FNMA Mae has specific rules pertaining to the right to file deficiency judgments. Will they follow up?
Homeowner Forecloses Bank
Classic example of action for bad foreclosure! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBuCSTFJffY
Counties Look at Lawsuits Saying they were Cheated Out of Mortgage Fees
An article from Bloomberg says that Bank of America is among a group of lenders that may face a host of lawsuits claiming that counties were cheated out of millions of dollars by MERS, a system used for more than a decade to register mortgages.
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said state attorneys general and county officials across the U.S. have expressed interest in his lawsuit against Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. and Bank of America, filed in Texas state court on Sept. 21. Dallas County could be owed as much as $100 million in filing fees, he said. Counties across the U.S. are financially strapped, and this would help bridge the gap in much needed revenues.
Mamouth US Supreme Court Case for Title Insurers
From The Supreme Court Blog comes an interesting and important title case. The case began in Cleveland and is scheduled to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this fall. The outcome could determine whether lawyers can file a new sort of consumer lawsuit against title companies on behalf of those who haven’t actually suffered any actual title damages or even a financial loss .
The lawsuit, First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards involves a homeowner named Edwards, who bought a house in September 2006 and paid for a title insurance policy from First American Title. A few years before that, First American had paid the firm that closed the transaction $2 million for a minority stake in the company and they made an agreement to exclusively sell First American title policies according to reports at Forbes.com. First American claimed there were no financial damages to Edwards.
However, the case appeared to violate RESPA laws, which prohibit title insurers from paying kickbacks or anything of value for referrals. The Supreme Court will review the case and its decision could mean that any violation of the RESPA law, regardless of injury or financial damages, could subject title underwriters who have practiced co-ownership with agents to enormous class action lawsuits.
Southern Title No Longer Writing Policies
Southern Title, a regional underwriter with over 500 agents is no longer writing title policies. Perhaps the nail in the coffin was the recent lawsuit.
southern-title-lawsuit was filed by United Central Bank against Southern Title Insurance Corporation as title underwriter and American National Title Company as closing agent in conjunction with a $4.205 Million first mortgage. The suit asks for a Jury Trial.
The suit alleges that both title companies were previously involved in closing other mortgages on the same property, leaving the loan in question subject to multiple existing prior liens. The plaintiffs therefore had both actual and constructive notice of intervening liens, and gave a first mortgage title policy, knowing the United Central Loan security interest was virtually worthless. When the mortgagor subsequently defaulted, United Central filed a claim under the policy with Southern Title, which, according to the complaint has not been answered with any “meaning full response.”
Plaintiff seeks “consequential, incidental and actual damages, including lost profits, interest and fees on existing indebtedness, indebtedness not covered under the title insurance policy, made on the basis of this claim, litigation expenses, attorney’s fees as well as lost profits…”
According to their press release Southern Title is no longer writing title policies and “will focus continuing efforts on the resolution of claims received on previously issued policies.”
Jeanne Johnson to Speak at National Association of Land Title Examiners and Abstractors
Press release
Jeanne Johnson will teach a “Train the Trainer” class at the NALTEA Conference (www.NALTEA.org) in Clearwater, FL on October 21st in Clearwater, FL. The class is designed to help those knowledgeable in the Title Insurance, Abstracting and Closing industries techniques in training very technical products to industry students. “To be really good in the title industry requires a tremendous amount of technical legal knowledge, as well as investigative skill” says Johnson. While some think the skills are mundane, Johnson sees those who are good at the job as title sleuths. “In this day and time, most titles are flawed, and the title abstractors and examiners are charged with a heavy responsibility to investigate and uncover the problems.”
Her Train the Trainer session will focus on making the experience of a title student interesting and fun. She says most people know more than they think they do about real estate titles. They know about real estate taxes, they know what an easement is, they recognize title ownership and mortgages, the key is to put them all together into a coherent pattern and lead them through the process of the investigation. “It’s great fun – I am proud to be a title geek!”
Look for her at the conference.
Owners of Abstracts Unlimited Arraigned on Charges
Mary Ann Palladino-DeVito, 41, and her husband Joseph, 39, owners of the now-defunct Abstracts Unlimited, have been arraigned on charges that they embezzled more than $1 million from homeowners seeking to clear property titles. “As part of this mortgage fraud scheme, these defendants are alleged to have victimized new homeowners … by accepting payment for mortgage fees, mortgage taxes, customer fees, real property filing fees, and escrow account funds and then misappropriating the funds for their own purposes,” District Attorney Donovan said. More at SILive
Home Closing 101: An Educational Initiative of the American Land Title Association
