Important Legislation, Closing Insight & CFPB Updates

A New Senate Bill, an Update on the Closing Insight Integration, PLUS CFPB’s “Your Home Loan Toolkit”

Dear Fund Member:

I hope each of you survived April Fool’s Day this year relatively intact. I spent April 1st in Tallahassee with a very dedicated group of FLTA Members and staff from the Office of Insurance Regulation and the Department of Financial Services, working on a new Closing Protection Letter form and other important aspects of the business of being a title insurance agent. We met far away from the Capitol, and so we felt pretty insulated from the legislative “doings.” However, that doesn’t mean we can ignore the fact that we are almost at the mid-point of the 2015 Legislative Session. With the hectic pace of a 60-day Session, it is important to stay vigilant and actively monitor all that goes on in Tallahassee. Fortunately, The Fund and its Members have strong representation in Tallahassee that has helped to build strong relationships amongst the industry and our elected representatives and senators. The Fund, long-considered the leading voice for Florida’s title insurance industry, has been supporting two bills and both continue to move through the legislative process.

This week, Senate Bill 736 by Sen. Kelli Stargel (R-Lakeland) was approved by the Senate Regulated Industries Committee by a vote of 9 to 2. This bill makes significant improvements to the process for obtaining estoppel certificates from condominium and homeowners’ association communities. There are still some committee stops in the Senate. The House companion, HB 611 by Rep. John Wood (R-Winter Haven), has one remaining committee before floor action. We are hopeful these bills will make it to the governor’s desk, but it is important to remember that sometimes even good legislative proposals take several years to be successful.

Additionally, The Fund is supportive of another priority piece of legislation to the title insurance industry, SB 1136 and HB 927. These bills address reforms to the recovery of assessments for title insurer insolvencies through surcharges to new title policies. These bills have each received favorable votes and continue to move through the process. If passed, the surcharge process will be made simpler and more equitable.

These are just two examples of proactive legislation that The Fund actively works to advance on your behalf. Part of our success can be attributed to the great name recognition The Fund enjoys because of the great work each and every one of you do to help strengthen our name and reputation.

In addition to the updates on legislation, there are couple of other important updates with the Closing Insight™ integration process and a new CFPB resource that I would like to share with you.

Recall that Bank of America, Wells Fargo and several other lenders have indicated they will be using Closing Insight™, a product of RealEC^® Technologies, as the platform to send data between the lender and the closing agent. This “data” will include costs for entry into the Closing Disclosure and the Closing Disclosure form itself. RealEC^® Technologies and the Fund are working on the final terms of the agreement for the integration of Closing Insight™ into DoubleTime^®. DoubleTime^® is targeted for the second group of software partners to be integrated, so do not be concerned if you receive information from RealEC^® Technologies that doesn’t include DoubleTime^®. If you are invited to register with RealEC^® Technologies now, there will be no requirement that you register a second time once DoubleTime^® is integrated. If you do not know your membership number The Fund’s Membership Department can provide that information to you. You can reach them by calling 800-336-3863

CFPB has just released their “Your Home Loan Toolkit.” This is a booklet (although I have a hard time calling something with 29 pages a “booklet”) created by CFPB to replace the current Settlement Cost booklet required under TILA-RESPA. Creditors are obligated to provide this Toolkit as part of the application process. You might find it to be interesting reading – at least the part that explains the new Loan Estimate and new Closing Disclosure forms to the consumer. On p. 19 of the Toolkit, there is a brief mention of the possibility that the title premium and related costs as required by some state laws may be “different” from what the consumer sees on their Loan Estimate or Closing Disclosure. Recall that this possibility is actually a probability in Florida in those areas where the seller normally pays for the owner’s title insurance and the buyer can get the loan policy for the much lower simultaneous issue rate. The industry is still working on a solution to this situation with the goal of having a standard document that most closing agents will use to explain the correction needed to accurately adjust the charges to the buyer and the seller.

You can access the “Your Home Loan Toolkit” here: https://www.thefund.com/TheFund/media/PDFs/CFPB_your_home_loan_toolkit.pdf

I hope you have found this helpful. As always, please let me know if you have any questions or comments and thank you for your support of The Fund.

Best Regards,

Melissa Jay Murphy
Senior Vice President
and General Counsel