Hot Topics & Things to Do

Dear Members,

Real Time Payments.  I recently hosted a Title Now webinar on a new form of electronic payment - Real Time Payments - that sparked a real interest and generated lots of questions.  If you missed the webinar, here is a link to our podcast, Title Now, and you can listen in.
https://www.thefund.com/resources/podcast/title-now/real-time-payments.aspx. My guest was Rick Bruhn with US Bank and he knows a lot about RTPs.  Here is a link to a summary of the many questions asked, with some answers!  https://www.thefund.com/real-time-payments-faqs.pdf  Thank you for your interest and I look forward to hosting many more sessions on current topics in the industry.

New GSE guidelines re: Attorney Opinion Letters.   This is a topic of great interest to us all and many of you have asked questions about the new FNMA and FreddieMac guidelines that allow, for certain mortgage loans, attorney opinion letters as an alternative to a mortgagee title insurance policy.  The stated goal of the new program is to lower the cost to the consumer of a home purchase with a mortgage loan.  A laudable goal, indeed.  But many of us are concerned this effort fails to properly disclose the risks to the consumer if this option is chosen.  We need to understand exactly what this new product does, who it protects and against what risks.  Attached is a high level summary of the major substantive points that we have been able to identify but I am continuing my effort to collect as much information as possible. https://www.thefund.com/information-center/pdf/alternative-title-products.pdf If you learn of transactions in which this product is being used, sharing the circumstances with me (and documentation if you have it!) might be very helpful.  ALTA has a lot of information about this topic and I am happy to share it with any of you who are interested.  Just shoot me an email and I will send you some links. 

Things to do when you have spare time.  We all know that transaction volumes have gone down.  While this can cause great anxiety, perhaps the slow down can create opportunities!  So here are some things to consider doing now that you have a little bit of spare time:

  • Join your local Real Estate Council (here's a link to the website that lists all RECs, flarecs.com).  Or, if you are already a member, go to the next meeting.  Several of the RECS have holiday meetings coming up soon.  Here is a list of the ones I know about:

       Bay Area Real Estate Council - Dec. 6, 5:30 - 8:00 pm
         - Contact Terri Dipinto at barec.terri@gmail.com

       Palm Beach County REC - Dec. 7, 6:00 - 9:00 pm
         - Contact RECManager@flarecs.com 

       Broward REC - Dec. 8, 5:30 - 8:30 pm
         - Contact RECManager@flarecs.com

       Central Florida REC - Dec. 13, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
         - Contact Cheryl Smith at cfreac02@gmail.com

       Famous Holiday Party (Jacksonville) - Dec. 16, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
         -  Contact RECManager@flarecs.com
  • Get caught up on issuing your title policies! Your deadlines are as follows:
    All policies and payments must be received no later than Wed., Dec. 28, 2022.  Please send to this address:

       Attorneys' Title Fund Services
       Attn:  Revenue Operations
       P.O. Box 628601
       Orlando FL  32862

    DO NOT SEND VIA OVERNIGHT MAIL! Send to our P.O. Box!

    For E-ClosingDT, DoubleTime and ePolicyManager customers using eSolutions, the deadline to submit electronically is Sat., Dec. 31, 2022 at 6:00 pm.
  • Re-read one of your favorite novels.  In my case, the list would include The Great Gatsby, Love in the Time of Cholera or A Wrinkle in Time.
  • Clean out your email in-box (this is really tedious so you have to reward yourself every 15 minutes in some way).

That's all for this week.  Let me know how we can help you.

11/28/2022