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In terms of forgeries or fraud where you saw it a lot was in the underwriting and appraisal side of the conveyances
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Jul 22, 2020 14:58
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Outrail posted:I think the point is if the work is redundant and hardly ever comes up it seems dumb/unfair/sneaky/whatever they don't insure for it since that sort of unforeseeable circumstance that is unreasonably arduous to research is the sort of thing a person getting insurance would expect to be insured for. This probably comes from a lack of knowledge about how to investigate whether a document has been forged. Here is the signature page from a muniment of title from 2001 that I chose at random from the deed records.  Tell me how you're supposed to find out if those are forgeries. blarzgh fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 15:04
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If it's almost impossible to check if your paperwork is a forgery but it could possibly come up as a problem people would like to be insured for that, and title insurance sounds like it should cover that sort of thing. You're saying that's not how it works which is fine, but it doesn't sound right to the average not law person. That's all there is to it.
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Jul 22, 2020 15:12
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Outrail posted:If it's almost impossible to check if your paperwork is a forgery but it could possibly come up as a problem people would like to be insured for that, and title insurance sounds like it should cover that sort of thing. You're saying that's not how it works which is fine, but it doesn't sound right to the average not law person. That's all there is to it. Well I can't help that. Notarization is already a nearly impenetrable prophylactic against forgeries, and title companies get to decide what services they offer. There is no reason, incentive, or functional method of offering insurance against forgeries, and its not even tangentially related to the service they do offer.
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Jul 22, 2020 15:23
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Adverse possession in Florida only takes seven years. Easiest way to establish it is to pay the taxes for the property for those 7 years.
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Jul 22, 2020 15:35
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blarzgh posted:Well I can't help that. Notarization is already a nearly impenetrable prophylactic against forgeries, and title companies get to decide what services they offer. There is no reason, incentive, or functional method of offering insurance against forgeries, and its not even tangentially related to the service they do offer. Notaries! Perfect guardians of law and identity! Trained over the course of multiple hours to identify fake ID, root out fraud, and avoid conflicts of interest! The very thought of one betraying the Notary's Honor to cash in on a scam would be as unthinkable as the sun rising in the west! https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/house-sales-fraud-theft-philadelphia-real-estate-dead-owners-william-johnson-20190124.html quote:The acquisitions exemplify an especially virulent problem in Philadelphia that has grown as neighborhood after neighborhood has undergone gentrification: the outright theft of homes. https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/l...4c-3a12c6186aea quote:The home of Dodson’s great-grandparents is a case in point. e: I'd be very interested if you could explain why medallion signature guarantees exist, and are standard in finance, if notaries are really "a nearly impenetrable prophylactic against forgeries." Space Gopher fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 15:35
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Citing a handful of cases where a bunch of criminals actively conspired to break the law: proof the law is no good! Guess we need to change the law against murders since dang ol murders keep happening! Also, what happens if someone forges the Medallion Signature Guarantee? Then what?
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Jul 22, 2020 16:38
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blarzgh posted:Citing a handful of cases where a bunch of criminals actively conspired to break the law: proof the law is no good! Guess we need to change the law against murders since dang ol murders keep happening! You're the one making the claim that "notarization is already a nearly impenetrable prophylactic against forgeries," and that it's unreasonable for people to want some level of insurance to cover damages from what is described in those articles. If you want to relate it to murder, an equivalent statement would be "murder is against the law, so it never happens, and anyone who's worried about the possibility of murder or wants some kind of 'life insurance' that would pay out if they're murdered is crazy and stupid." If someone forges a bank's medallion signature guarantee stamp, then they're barcoded, are built with anti-counterfeiting technology, and designed to be traceable. It's relatively straightforward to call up a financial institution and ask for their records around the medallion guarantee. This contrasts with the standard for notaries, which is basically "write it down in a book I guess, and try not to lose the book, also your seal is designed with the best anti-forgery technology 1890 had to offer." If someone manages to impersonate a bank's customer and get a valid medallion guarantee on a forged signature, the bank is liable for damages, and is required to keep a surety bond to pay for them. Becoming a notary is typically very easy (a few bucks to the state, a signed promise not to do anything bad, go buy your stamp), so there's little barrier to entry for sketchy people who want to make a quick buck scamming people. Becoming an institution that can handle medallion guarantees is difficult, expensive, and requires that surety bond. It's almost like the financial industry noticed all kinds of potential failure points around notaries, and came up with a separate system that tried to address them.
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Jul 22, 2020 17:58
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ok dude, you're right.
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Jul 22, 2020 18:02
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evilweasel posted:it depends on the details of the state's adverse possession law, but probably the new owner Wouldn't the original owner also be paying their mortgage and property tax? Does fiduciary responsibility count towards "possession"?
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Jul 22, 2020 18:18
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Yup insurance can insure against things. If they have no incentive to insure against this thing, it's entirely because their customers don't know to demand it, and no insurance company has discovered they could be more competitive vs. their competitors by offering insurance that covers this specific thing. It really has no relationship to the difficulty the insurance company might face in reducing their own risk by conducting complicated/time consuming investigations. My homeowner's insurance policy offered me a tiny discount because I put in smoke detectors and got an inspector to come look and verify they were there. The insurance company already insured me against fire, though. And no insurance company is doing some kind of exhaustive anti-fire inspection/repeated inspection/forensic inspection of every insured property, in order to eliminate the risk of accidental fires. That'd be too difficult/impossible to do. Nevertheless, actuaries can calculate the statistical likelihood of fires, the average cost of those fires, and charge customers what they need to in order to maintain assets sufficient to pay out accidental fire claims, plus a profit. Title insurance company actuaries could calculate the average annual cost of payouts against claims that arose due to fraud, raise their rates accordingly, and be fine. They don't, because customers don't demand it, probably because most customers don't even consider the possibility of a fraud, and those that do assume they're covered. Much of the insurance industry operates this way: excluding coverage for things in fine print they know their customers don't read or understand, which allows them to deny some percentage of claims that would otherwise cost them money (require them to raise rates) to cover, and in doing so, they can offer lower rates and outcompete more scrupulous competitors. But it's industry-wide and that's basically collusive, anti-competitive practices which are handwaved away as "industry standards" instead.
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Jul 22, 2020 18:19
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blarzgh posted:Ok, you guys aren't getting it. I'll try one last time. You're conflating reducing risk with insuring against risk. They are not the same thing. Things like notaries, fire alarms, living in a low crime area, being healthy, etc... all reduce risk of bad thing happening. They do not reduce the cost of bad thing happening. Insurance reduces the worst-case cost in exchange for a smaller always-case payment. A title search ("we dug through records and to the best of our knowledge there is nothing wrong with it") is reducing risk. Title insurance ("if there is something wrong with it, we will pay out X") is insuring against it. They are not the same service, even if they are offered by the same company and even if the company only offers insurance after doing a search. Running a profitable insurance company does not require you to do anything to reduce risk, it just requires you to accurately determine the probabilities & costs + have a big enough pool that things average out. You could have a perfectly fine insurance company that never does any title searches, just classifies property into similar groups, applies a risk model, and charges based on how likely similar properties are to need payouts. Having a hard-to-fake notary chain makes insuring against forgery cheaper to offer (lower risk), but it doesn't make it redundant or impractical to offer. Title insurance is presented to normal people as covering things like forgeries, and that it doesn't is hidden in fine print. Like you said "their policy applies to all documents which transfer title", so it doesn't cover forgeries because they are void instead of voidable. That is a very technical distinction and not something an average person is going to understand without more explanation. (Also, that someone thought to write the exception into the policy suggests that it does happen.) Foxfire_ fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jul 22, 2020 18:50
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This is getting a little circular. "but they should!" "but it could happen!" "but it's reasonable!" Ok but they still don't offer it so what else do you want
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Jul 22, 2020 18:55
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Harold Fjord posted:This is getting a little circular. The problem is that people think they do offer it, and it's included, and they don't.
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Jul 22, 2020 18:57
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pseudanonymous posted:The problem is that people think they do offer it, and it's included, and they don't. Change the name of the service to Title Research With the Skill and Care that a Reasonably Careful Title Researcher Would Have Used in Similar Circumstances
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Jul 22, 2020 19:09
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pseudanonymous posted:The problem is that people think they do offer it, and it's included, and they don't. Yeah pretty much this. I guess a better question would be "how frequently does title insurance actually discover an issue with the property that would materially affect the sale" and "how often do they pay out afterwards" so that we can answer the question "why are we even paying for this instead of the township not letting you sell a deed that is incorrect"
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Jul 22, 2020 19:15
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pseudanonymous posted:The problem is that people think they do offer it, and it's included, and they don't. They mostly do, though? Like, go look at a random title insurers policy summary and see what it covers. Pre-policy fraud, including forged deeds and releases, is almost certainly on there. But they sure as hell aren’t investigating it *ahead* of time. Maybe there’s something weird about Texas law that’s affecting blarzghfhfhshsg’s view on whether title insurance covers forgery or fraud, but the title insurers I’ve used explicitly cover it. E: to be clear, there is a distinction between a title *search* and title insurance.
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Jul 22, 2020 19:22
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Yeah, I totally, completely, and utterly understand that it's functionally impossible for a title company to detect a forged document/signature/whatever. That's not remotely the point because that's not how insurance works. Insurance isn't about, "we guarantee this isn't a problem because we researched it." Insurance is, "well we took a cursory look and are satisfied that the chances are low enough that this will happen, so we will assume the risk for $X." The point is that title insurance is widely represented as, "if you buy a house, and our product, and you lose money due to a problem with the title, then we'll cover you." See: https://www.invtitle.com/title-insurance-overview quote:The sale of a residential or commercial real estate property is a highly complex process, and title insurance has become an indispensable component of a successful transaction. A mistake in a prior deed, an outstanding ownership claim, a hidden lien or outright fraud—any of which may result in losses for the owner or lender—are surprisingly common occurrences. When owners and lenders suffer losses related to a covered risk, title insurance provides indemnification against those losses. https://www.stewart.com/en/insurance/title-insurance/what-is-title-insurance.html quote:Title insurance protects against claims from defects. Defects are things such as another person claiming an ownership interest, improperly recorded documents, fraud, forgery, liens, encroachments, easements and other items that are specified in the insurance policy. https://www.firstam.com/title/resources/reference-information/title-insurance-reference-articles/q-a-about-title-insurance.html quote:Standard coverage handles such risks as: So either they're all misrepresenting their coverage, or they are in fact covering fraud.
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Jul 22, 2020 19:25
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The legendary “become a notary to scam people” scams
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Jul 22, 2020 21:07
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euphronius posted:The legendary “become a notary to scam people” scams i'm sure it's at least partly due to the class of people i interact with, but all of the notaries i've met have been in it to win it. if you're gonna get serious about fraud becoming/associating with a notary is an important career move
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Jul 22, 2020 21:15
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Going to make a killing charging people (looks at tables) a maximum of $5 for this notarization
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Jul 22, 2020 21:16
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This isn't my specialty, but reading what blarzgh and those snippits are saying, i expect that what they are covering is past fraud or forgery of a deed. so someone slipped a fraud or forgery in ten years ago, covered. the person who is right now selling you the land, and doing so by impersonating the actual owner and fraudulently signing their name to the deed is not covered.
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Jul 22, 2020 21:24
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I don’t remember ever hearing of “fraud” being a defect in a title The usual clouds are judgment, liens, mortgages, easements, divorces and missing signatures, etc Those all have to be cleaned up or disclosed before you can get to “good marketable title” which is demanded by the contract of sale and by the banks I have no idea how a title abstractor would even discover fraud And whether that would even be necessarily a cloud on the title But as said above that is all different from fraud in the actual transaction you are completing right now which happens all the time with respect to not disclosing bad things about the property and so forth
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Jul 22, 2020 21:33
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There can easily be fraud in the contract of sale. Realtors in particular have a .... tenuous connection to facts . Donald trump is from that industry as an example But deeds ? Idk
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Jul 22, 2020 21:36
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Kalman posted:They mostly do, though? Like, go look at a random title insurers policy summary and see what it covers. Pre-policy fraud, including forged deeds and releases, is almost certainly on there. Do they? A cursory google search gets me no looks at any actual texts and limitations in the insurance policy (maybe cause I'm a filthy euro, maybe because there is no nationwide unified policy), which I'm willing to bet is highly state specific completely dependent on that state's law. So maybe yes for some, maybe no. Do various exceptions apply? Maybe? Maybe the insurance can claim to technically cover it but in actuality don't cover it if it's this and that sub-variant of criminal fraud, depending on criminal subject, time period, geographical area or even more crap. Yeah that sounds kinda lovely, but then insurance companies are incredibly lovely and try to get away with as much as they can all day ever day. So I'm perfectly willing to believe a company would advertize coverage for fraud but not actually deliver, and even if they do deliver it might not be complete coverage or the coverage and payout itself is subject to a bunch of caveats. You can't know until you look at state-level policies and laws. Our solution is pretty simple though, we use We also have title insurance, or more precisely a general house seller insurance and house buyer insurance, that sort of cover the same poo poo but not completely. It's a very tricky subject, where actual fraud is maybe (depends on the situation, if legally the deal is void due to a fraudulent deed the insurance might no cover a no-sale situation) covered, but the actual payout limit might be 200 000 USD which might be a fraction of the value of the house. Here's an idea, if you want to find out what a title insurance covers - if anything - contact a local attorney and pay them to find out, then you'll know for sure.
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Jul 22, 2020 21:40
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euphronius posted:I don’t remember ever hearing of “fraud” being a defect in a title JFC they do, in fact, cover fraud, they just don't try to discover it. Like I said - title *insurance* vs. title *search*. Here's, as an example, the first two lines out of Commonwealth's policy description for owner's title insurance: "The new Owner's Policy includes the following basic coverage: - False impersonation of the true owner of the property - Forged deeds, releases or wills"
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Jul 22, 2020 21:43
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In large sections of the country deeds can be traced back to the original grantor who in many cases is the federal gov through the homestead act or like ... the King of England so .. Where is the fraud coming in I don’t get it. You can compare the description of the property through the deeds backwards and forwards in time Stuff gets a little tricky when property lines are defined by a river that has moved or like a certain tree that died and so forth I guess
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Jul 22, 2020 21:45
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Kalman posted:JFC they do, in fact, cover fraud, they just don't try to discover it. Like I said - title *insurance* vs. title *search*. Well they list it on a website I guess I don’t know what that means in real life tho
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Jul 22, 2020 21:48
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My favorite title insurance story was actually linked in this thread quite a long time ago. It went something like this: Homeowner A buys a house (in Texas?) and moves his family in. At some point he gets into a feud with Neighbor B about the location of a fence (or some other structure) and calls in a surveyor to mark out the edge of his property so he can fight Neighbor B in court. The surveyor proceeds to discover that at some point in the past all the land was owned by Landowner Alpha who then divided it up among his kids, and who had given a piece of the land to his son-in-law. Son-in-law built a house, which he lived in for years and then sold the house and property, which passed through several owners before reaching Homeowner A. HOWEVER, the house son-in-law built was not actually on the land that son-in-law owned, but was part of some other family member's parcel. The actual land son-in-law owned was some undeveloped space without road access farther North. The house Homeowner A was living in was actually on Neighbor B's land, and Homeowner A actually owned the undeveloped land up north. There is no explanation for why son-in-law built his house on someone else's land or how no one noticed he didn't own the property when he sold it. Apparently, title insurance didn't cover this because the deed the guy bought was clean, it just wasn't the land he thought he was buying.
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Jul 22, 2020 23:50
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Anonymous Zebra posted:My favorite title insurance story was actually linked in this thread quite a long time ago. It went something like this: Reminds me of the one where the owner sold some land and landlocked their property Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/2o3g9g/neighbors_stupidly_caused_themselves_to_be/ First Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/2ooy1x/update_my_neighbors_caused_themselves_to_be/ Update: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/310bkn/update_my_landlocked_neighbors_the_sheriff_and_me/ Resolution: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/4dci57/update_my_neighbors_caused_themselves_to_be/ 
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Jul 23, 2020 00:10
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Devor posted:Reminds me of the one where the owner sold some land and landlocked their property This was truly one of the best sagas in SA history and I like to think it is remembered as such
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Jul 23, 2020 02:32
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I live in an apartment building in Austin, Texas. The apartment management advised everyone that they would begin to tow vehicles without a valid parking permit. They sent out the e-mail in mid-March 2020. I renewed my parking permit in March and renewed my lease in mid-April; my new lease began on June 1st. When I renewed my lease it was handled by a guy who doesn't work at the rental office any more, and he didn't give me a new parking sticker. On July 7th my car was towed. I mistakenly thought that I had parked in a space reserved for handicapped tenants. I was not informed by apartment management that my car had been towed. My car was towed again on July 9th. Again, the apartment management did not notify me that my car had been towed. I work from home and did not notice that my car had been towed until July 16th. In both cases I paid the towing company fees. I spoke with the apartment manager and described the situation. She told me that the apartment would reimburse me for some of the fees; my main complaint was that I was not notified that my car was towed and was charged for a week's storage at the towing company's lot. After checking with her boss she told me that they offered to reimburse me for one day of storage. I informed her that the total charges were $640 and one day's storage fee is around $20. I sent her the paperwork that I have and she told me that she'll call me back by Friday. Here's a copy of the lease's parking permit addendum: quote:Parking Permit Agreement It looks to me like I don't have an leg to stand on, but I'm curious: 1. Did apartment management have any duty to issue a parking permit upon lease renewal? I've lived in many apartment buildings in Austin (and in Texas) and I (and people I know) have always been given a parking sticker as part of the lease renewal process. 2. Is there any legal requirement that apartment management notify a tenant if his vehicle has been towed?
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Jul 23, 2020 04:37
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Devor posted:Reminds me of the one where the owner sold some land and landlocked their property That is... truly terrifying. I expect that this is out in the boonies, which makes it even scarier since who knows what the sheriff or neighbor are going to do... One thing that's very related to the previous discussions on title: quote:The neighbors had used their land and home as collateral for an informal loan and the person who lent to them wanted the property when they failed to repay him. He came after us. The outcome of this was that they are the ones who failed their end of the contract, so his problem was with the neighbors, NOT with us. So one of the top comments calls this as a "secret unrecorded mortgage." While it's pretty clear that it was a very unofficial mortgage, this is effectively an unrecorded lien against the property, right? What effect do unrecorded liens have, legally? I'm wondering for both if it's a properly done (but unrecorded) mortgage, or a loanshark who draws up a half-assed contract that takes the house as collateral. Maybe a better question: does a lien have to be recorded to be effective? Or does listing something as collateral in a loan contract suffice? Following that, if the collateral is somehow legal but unrecorded as a lien, and the owner defaults, how long does the "lender" have to go to court to get a lien? Say they take the loan, sell the house, and then LATER default on the loan. Does the lender have any right to claim a lien at that point? My understanding is with things like mechanic's liens, there's a very specific time window in which they can file a lien against a property, even if the title has changed hands.
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Jul 23, 2020 13:54
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This is my favorite title issue case from the past 12 months.blarzgh posted:Imagine this: your client is presently embroiled in a heated boundary dispute with their next door neighbor that started when the neighbor decided the best place for their horse stable was along the fence line between two rural, 3 acre tracts - a mere 40 feet from the client's house. The neighbors are now privy to the acrid smell of horseshit wafting through their kitchen windows to greet them each morning. Well, this righteously pissed off the neighbors who immediately sought legal counsel.
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Jul 23, 2020 14:25
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Mods, please change thread name to Legal Questions: Ignorance how title searches work shall be the whole of the law Seriously you're haranguing the real estate attorney over an aggressive desire to not understand something in his specialized field. Usually you have to at least call and schedule an appointment for that. blarzgh posted:Not a deed, but I did literally have a case where brother ACTUALLY snuck into blind, deaf, dying mother's hospital room death bed and ACTUALLY held her hand up to a will that he had changed himself to executor on, and ACTUALLY wiggled her hand with a pen limply in it to 'sign' the will. Did you ultimately get the farm? blarzgh posted:This is my favorite title issue case from the past 12 months. How many additional hours did that night's work and can of paint get you? Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Jul 25, 2020 |
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Jul 25, 2020 09:35
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Discendo Vox posted:Did you ultimately get the farm? 1) as a matter of fact, yes, the 4 other siblings did get the farm, and Cletus got kicked out of the house he was squatting in, arrested on other charges, and fined by the IRS. 2) I did not have to unpaint the fence myself, fortunately (also wasn't my client, specifically).
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Jul 25, 2020 14:33
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blarzgh posted:1) as a matter of fact, yes, the 4 other siblings did get the farm, and Cletus got kicked out of the house he was squatting in, arrested on other charges, and fined by the IRS. Did they got the lady to move her stables smd/or were they forced to remove their fence? Does that count's code require approval to build a stable? In my county you'd need a permit to build a structure that size even if it's not in a residential area.
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Jul 25, 2020 18:30
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therobit posted:Did they got the lady to move her stables smd/or were they forced to remove their fence? Does that count's code require approval to build a stable? In my county you'd need a permit to build a structure that size even if it's not in a residential area. Where I live they wouldn't even have gotten permit to construct the fence. Also we have a special court that would have forcibly rearranged the properties to avoid that moronic crap.
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Jul 25, 2020 19:26
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What I'm saying is they wouldn't have cause for such an off-fence
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Jul 25, 2020 19:28
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I hate you.
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Jul 25, 2020 19:51
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