Fannie Mae Wants To Pedal An Alternative To Title Insurance: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

In 2007, Salon predicted the sub-prime financial crash with its cleverly named “Implode-O-Meter” – if they brought it back today would anyone notice this time? While the housing market was insanely hot at the top of the year, things cooled off so fast it could kill wooly mammoths. Last month, National Association of Home Builders CEO Jerry Howard admitted the housing market is in a recession and will “stay at bottom” for the foreseeable future. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said existing home sales were down 20.2 percent from 2021. Layoffs in the industry are described as alternatingly  between massive or sweeping.

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All of CFPB's past actions threatened by appeals court decision

An appeals court decision that invalidated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's payday lending rule has far broader implications, potentially opening all of the agency's past rules and other actions to legal challenges, say regulatory and constitutional lawyers. 



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Remote online notarizations will reduce real estate fraud

Remote notarization real estate fraud prevention analysis article

The widespread availability of remote online notarization (RON) may become the strongest deterrent to real estate fraud because the technology used by RON makes it much harder to impersonate a Notary or a signer.

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Real Property, Financial Services, & Title Insurance Update

Week Ending July 29, 2022

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Can Fincen deliver on promised regulatory relief?

The rule is part of the Corporate Transparency Act, which requires businesses to report their beneficial ownership information directly to a registry database maintained by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It's meant to crack down on anonymous shell companies in the United States, and the rule included a major benefit for banks: getting them out of the business of having to collect beneficial ownership information on their clients. 



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Delaware Amends Code Regarding Notarial Acts

Delaware has recently enacted provisions to amend its Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts. This Act adopts the Uniform Law Commission’s (ULC) Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (Revised Uniform Law). Notably, these amendments will allow all notarial officers to perform remote notarization, provided they meet certain requirements. These requirements include, among other matters, obtaining satisfactory evidence of the identity of the remotely located consumer by using at least two different methods of verifying a consumer’s identity.

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Delays in Obtaining Permits Leading to Property Foreclosure Not a Regulatory Taking [NJ]

Federal Court Judge Cheryl Ann Kraus was ‘riding the Circuit’ and decided a regulatory takings case while sitting in the District Court, District of New Jersey captioned James v. Vornlocker. Full opinion here 2022-8-31 Vornlocker. The case was decided on motions for summary judgment, and it appears that Plaintiff admitted most of the facts and failed to genuinely contest the remaining facts set forth in the motions.

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The Limits of the Scrivener’s Error Doctrine Regarding Lease Drafting Mistakes [NY]

Years later, as a practitioner, I have come to learn that even with properly drafted written lease agreements, when one party is seeking to extricate itself therefrom, claims of “mistake” will inevitably surface. But what are the limits of these efforts to rescind or reform an agreement based upon a mistake? Specifically, can a mere “Scrivener’s Error,” during drafting, result in a wholesale extinguishing of a lease document?

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‘Doubles to Dorms’ Isn’t a Scandal, but Prohibiting Bidding on Real Estate Would Be [LA]

In New Orleans, people are “fed up” with the 'Doubles to Dorms' movement, and they have garnered political support for their cause.

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Cleveland Botanical Garden’s hours, parking and admission fees do not violate 140-year-old land donation, Ohio Supreme Court rules

The Cleveland Botanical Garden is not in violation of a 140-year-old deed that created Wade Park when it built an underground parking garage, began charging admission and regulated the hours that the space is open, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday.



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Equity Overcomes The Law In A Land Title Case [PA]

First, foremost, the case decided on October 12, 2022 is non-precedential, leaving the bench and bar to debate whether it matters.* But, the decision in Nally v. Nally, 163 EDA 2022 is going to make the real estate community quiver with uncertainty because it suggests in a divorce setting, how title is held by a couple may not really matter.

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Security for Costs and CPL’s: Court of Appeal addresses a defendant’s financial position and the cancellation of certificate of pending litigation for a builder’s lien [Canada]

The British Columbia Court of Appeal recently ruled that a defendant’s strong financial position is an irrelevant consideration to obtaining security for costs against an impecunious corporate plaintiff.



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Hurricane Ian destroyed their homes. Algorithms sent them money

AI-generated Halloween Candy

'Sophisticated scam' local real estate company almost falls victim

Indiana homeowners fight for their right to stop parties on the beach

Title Agents Take Business to the Next Level

Woman Turns The 110-Year-Old Tree Stump In Her Yard Into A Magical Miniature Free Library

These days, many book lovers are more likely to grab their Kindles and head to a chic café than visit their local library. That means nonprofit organizations like Little Free Library, which work to build and rejuvenate libraries worldwide, have to get creative. 

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Landscapers Find Car Reported Stolen in 1992 — Buried at California Mansion

Three decades after a car was reported stolen in Northern California, police are digging the missing convertible out of the yard of a $15 million mansion built by a man with a history of arrests for murder, attempted murder and insurance fraud.

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Woman Charged For Wielding 'Tower Of Bees' To Ward Off Eviction, Which Is Admittedly Kinda Badass

For the record, you shouldn’t release a swarm of bees upon police officers, but, if we’re being honest, it is some incredibly cool superhero shit, right



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An overweight cat was denied by a Russian airline. His owner hatched an elaborate scheme using an impostor.

Mikhail Galin was distraught when Russian airline Aeroflot told him his cat, Viktor, was too heavy to fly in the cabin. The gray-and-black feline was already sick from an earlier flight from Riga, Latvia, to Moscow that he had been allowed to take, Galin wrote in a Nov. 6 Facebook post, and he couldn’t bear the idea of putting him in cargo for eight hours. Aeroflot allows pets in the cabin if they and their carrier container max out at 17.6 pounds, but Viktor weighed in at 22.

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Agnes Sampson, the 'Witch' Who Confessed to Plotting Against King James VI

A woeful ghost is said to roam the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, her nebulous body bald, naked, and battered. As legend has it, she is the apparition of Agnes Sampson, interrogated at Holyrood and subjected to cruel torture some 400 years ago.

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