REMINDER: Policy Surcharge

Also: the Administrative Surcharge, addressing your Data Call questions and The Fund Commercial Services Division

Dear Members,

Unless something exciting happens in the next two weeks, this is my last email to you for 2016. Let me take this opportunity to say I am still enjoying my role as your General Counsel and am stoked about the great support that you give The Fund! I am getting positive feedback for these messages, so they will continue in 2017. I will work hard to make them readable (short), relevant (timely) and helpful (stuff you need to know).

Happy Holidays! Don’t forget that the $3.28 surcharge you collect on every transaction goes away on December 31, 2016. Some important practice points:

• Closings occurring through and on December 31, 2016 require collection of the surcharge. December 31 is a Saturday so it won’t come into play very much.
• Date of issuance of the policies is not relevant, it is the closing date that matters.
• If you collect the surcharge in error, IT MUST BE REFUNDED TO THE CONSUMER.
• If you collect the surcharge in error and you send us a check for it, we will return the check to you and instruct you to issue a refund to the consumer.
• If the Closing Disclosure is issued to the buyer and contains the surcharge, the closing gets delayed beyond December 31, 2016, and the lender won’t let you change the CD, then close and refund the surcharge to the consumer.

$200 Administrative Surcharge: For those of you with corporate title agencies, please remember that the $200 Administrative Surcharge due to the Department of Financial Services is due before January 30, 2017. You have to pay online through your My Profile account with DFS. Here is a link to a webpage that gives you additional information about this requirement.

Data Call: I’ve gotten several questions lately about whether the data call is going away after three years. The law does not contain an expiration date for collection of the data, so if you have a corporate title agency, assume that you will continue to collect the required data and submit it to OIR before June 1 of every year.

Our Commercial Services Division is getting more attention and is helping Fund Members close their complicated high value deals. Recently, John Neukamm with the Mechanik Nuccio law firm in Tampa worked with Senior Fund Underwriter, John Brown, to close a transaction involving the purchase of land resulting in an owner’s policy in the amount of $59,100,000 and a construction loan giving rise to a $31,520,000 loan policy. Of his experience with The Fund, John, who has been a loyal Fund member since 1985, says “The Fund provided excellent and prompt service, and John Brown and the other Fund employees were extraordinarily helpful in the successful consummation of the purchase, sale and loan transactions. I urge other Florida attorneys to seriously consider utilizing The Fund and its Commercial Services Division in closing their clients’ transactions."

Thank you for your support of The Fund. See you in 2017!

Best Regards,

Melissa Jay Murphy
Senior Vice President and
General Counsel