Texas Title Insurance Guaranty Association...

Transcription

1 Stewart Title Contacts Texas Title Insurance Guaranty Association... Central Texas District Office 5900 Shepherd Mountain Cove Building 2, Suite 200 Austin, TX (512) (800) (512) Fax Patti Bonner, District Manager Deanna Allen, Assoc. District Manager Angela Fling, Agency Assistant Texas Underwriting Counsel Richard Black (800) The Title Insurance Guaranty Association has recently announced several changes, which we have forwarded to you via . Robert York, Director of Title Examinations at the Texas Department of Insurance, has reviewed the issue of Interim Construction Binders being considered policies with Rob Carter (Deputy Commissioner). In their discussion they have now concluded that Policy Guaranty Fees are not to be collected on Interim Construction Binders (ICB). So basically TDI reversed their previous stance regarding ICB s. Therefore, do not collect the $1.00 TIG Fee on ICBs, only collect for each Owners and Mortgage Title Policy issued. The Guaranty fee remittance form was revised July 27, So be sure and retain the form for next quarter reporting. This new form is posted on our website at in the tools of the trade section. For further information you may visit the TDI website at Bill Pratt (866) John Rothermel (800) George Barnett (800) Sarah Schneider (800) Forms & Information (800) Agency Accounting (800) Issue Highlights Unclaimed Property P-53: Education To Enforcement Insured Closing Letters Tricky T-00 s Rate Rule Corner Hill Country Seminar Schedule of Events Forth Quarter 2004

2 Unclaimed Property Report It s that time of year again! As you know, November 1st of every year, is the deadline for you to file your unclaimed property report with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Unclaimed Property is any financial asset that has been abandoned by the owner for a period of three years or more. Escrow or trust funds can be considered unclaimed property. If you are not able to locate the owner of those funds and you ve held the money in escrow for 3 years, its time for you to report. Title Agent Responsibilities Interest and Penalty on Late Remittance According to the comptrollers office, a title agent who fails to pay or deliver property on time shall pay interest from the date the property should have been reported until the date it is received. File a report immediately if you determine your are holding property that should have been delivered to the state of Texas in previous years. The Comptroller s office will calculate the interest and penalty for you and forward a bill for any amount owed. For more information or for a copy of the reporting form, visit You may also contact the Texas Comptrollers office for unclaimed property at , with any question you may have. P-53: Education to Enforcement The Texas Department of Insurance recently announced their focus on P-53 has now shifted from education to enforcement. In recent weeks complaints of alleged rebating have been referred to the TDI Legal Division for action. Robert Carter, Jr. (Deputy Commissioner-Title) reports that recent referrals are being investigated by the Legal Compliance Department for formal enforcement proceedings. They involve both large and small violations in all parts of the state, and include title agents, title companies and recipients of the rebates. It is the agent s responsibility to review files with outstanding balances from time to time. A good rule of thumb would be to send out a letter every 6 months notifying the party(s) involved that this money is still being held. Keep a copy of your letter in the file and to document that you have attempted to locate and notify the owner. If you are not able to locate the owner (i.e. they ve moved and left no forwarding address, etc.) these funds can be escheated to the state. If you are able to locate the parties involved and there is only a dispute regarding who is to receive the funds, than these funds are not to be escheated. TIG FEE An Underwriting company you can COUNT on! Presenting... Burnet County Central Texas * Burnet County * 4,511 In 1852, when this county was created and named for lawyer-politician David G. Burnet, the town of Hamilton became the county seat. The legislature changed the town s name to Burnet in 1858, pointing out that there was another Texas town named Hamilton. Burnet shipped carloads of red granite for construction of the state capitol at Austin between 1881 and 1888.

3 Rate Rule Corner R-21: Multiple Owner Policies on Same Land Upon request when two or more owner policies (excluding owner policies covering leasehold estates covering the same land and covering no other land are issued simultaneously to different insureds who are the grantor(s) (or seller(s)) and grantee(s) (or purchaser(s)) in the transaction pursuant to which policies are to be issued (e.g., a buyer and a seller or fee estate and easement on the fee), a separate policy shall be issued to all grantors (or sellers) and all grantee(s) (or purchasers) in accordance with Rate Rule R-3. The rate for the first policy issued shall be the Basic Rate and the rate for the next policy(ies) shall be 30% of the basic premium for such amount for each policy(ies) issued. Should the aggregate amount of the next policy(ies) exceed the amount of the first policy, the premium for the next policy(ies) shall be at the Basic Rate plus 30% of the basic premium for the first policy. In no event shall the charge for any policy issued pursuant to this rule be less than the minimum promulgated rate. In plain language: Rate Rule R-21 is one of those rules that many of you have probably never even looked at, let alone used in one of your own transactions. This rule allows the issuance of a simultaneous additional owner title policy or policies on the same land in the same transaction. The premium for the additional owner title poliy(s) is 30% of the basic premium, but in no event less than the minimum basic rate which is no $237. So in what type of transaction would R-21 be used? Well, R-21 is used when you have a seller that previously did not obtain an owner title policy upon purchase of their property, and now they are selling that same piece of property and conveying it by general warranty deed. He may be concerned about his liability for warrantor s coverage. If so, the seller is able to purchase an OTP covering the same property for 30% of the basic rate. Bill Pratt mentioned to me that in the 24 years that he has worked in the title insurance industry, only once has he seen R-21 used. It was in a transaction where a old Rail Road Right-of-Way was being sold & they were concerned about warrantor s liability. Insured Closing Letters Have you been using Stewart s internet-based Insured Closing letter application? Or have you not used it in a while, and forgot how to do it? Perhaps you re new to the company, and no one trained you on how to prepare your very own insured closing letter (ICL). Well we re here to help make your life much easier! Stewart s ICL Program is extremely easy to use, you can prepare an ICL for your lender in about 45 seconds! No more faxing requests and waiting till the next day because you were working late & its after hours. Our Site is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To help refresh your memory, here s all you need to do. 1. Go to (make sure and save it as a favorite on your internet browser) 2. Log on using your username and password (if you ve forgotten your username and pass word, call us and we can get you setup again) 3. On the main screen select CREATE ICL 4. Click on the BINOCULARS next to the lenders number box. (Each lender is set up in our system with a unique identifying number. Each lender will have a different number for each branch office)

4 Insured Closing Letters Cont.. 5. Type in the NAME of the lender you want along with at least the CITY or STATE the lender is located in. (This way when you type in Wells Fargo, you don t have to scroll through a million offices to find your specific office. You ll see that if there are a lot to scroll thru, it will have separate pages to look through. Make sure you locate the exact match with the name & address.) Once you ve found the exact match, double click on the corresponding number. You ll see that it brings you back to the CREATE ICL screen and populates the lender number field. You ll also notice that it automatically puts in your agent ID # and today s date. If you have a branch offices and would like them to appear on the letter, select YES, next to branch offices. 6. All you have to do now is type in the specific information for your transaction into the fields provided, i.e. GF#, buyer/borrower, Attn. 7. Click on the SAVE & PREVIEW button to see your completed ICL. If your ICL needs some changes, select modify/review and correct the information. You can then print out a copy for your file. If you have your lender s address, simply go to FILE on the tool bar, scroll down to SEND, select by . This will create an outgoing with the ICL as an attachment. See how simple! All you really have to do is logon, find your specific lender, and type your specific information. Not bad for 1 minute of your time! Keep in mind that the system will require you to change your password every 90 days; However, it will allow you to rotate between 2 passwords. So tell every in your office what your 2 passwords are. That way, if 1 doesn t work because it s been changed, they ll know to try the other. If you have any Questions or problems, please feel free to call any time! ricky T-00 s Home Office Issues can sometimes be tricky particularly when it comes to filling out T-00 s. A home office issue by definition is the home office (i.e. Underwriter) issuing the policy for an agent that is not licensed to issue policies in that particular county. It is important that the T-00 s be filled out correctly, and remember that we need a T-00 from each agent involved. When filling out a T-00 it is important to recognize that even though you may have taken the policy from your inventory, Stewart Title Guaranty Company is actually issuing the policy. This is why we actually sign the policy. Subsequently the first line on a T-00 that needs to be filled in, The undersigned representative of (Company Issuing the policy), that s us! With HOIs, there are multiple agents providing some kind of service. For this reason, the line item on a T- 00 the following services were actually rendered by, this area is for the company providing service, that s you. This next section is for the date of service and the location of service rendered. Please fill in both of these, especially the addresses. Following the date of service and location is where you describe the service your company provided. Normally it will be search, examination, or closing. Finally, the percentage of the premium agreed and a signature of person rendering service (that s you!) We ll sign the bottom section. Now you should be well versed on completing T-00s. For your convenience we have attached a copy of a HOI T-00 for your use which already has our name pre-printed. This form is also available on our website at

5 FORM T-00 (FOR HOME OFFICE ISSUE ONLY) VERIFICATION OF SERVICES RENDERED G.F. NO: Pursuant to the requirements of Procedural Rules P-1.o. and P-22, the undersigned representative of STEWART TITLE GUARANTY COMPANY (Company issuing the Policy) hereby verifies that the following services were actually rendered by (Person and firm affiliation rendering the service): Date(s) services rendered: Location services rendered: DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES: Percentage or amount of premium (remaining after remittance to the Title Insurance Company) agreed to be paid to the person rendering service: $ or % Signature of Person rendering service Date = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = To Be Completed by Person Paying for Service I, Angela Fling (on behalf of STEWART TITLE GUARANTY COMPANY) agree, to the best of my knowledge, that the above description of services rendered is accurate and complete and that the amount shown paid is correct. Signature Date

6 October 19-20, 2004 TLTA~Central Texas Regional Seminar Omni San Antonio Hotel, San Antonio Schedule December 2-3, 2004 TLTA~Texas Land Title Institute Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort, San Antonio October 21, 2004 TLTA~ Right Rules, Correct Calculations Workshop Plus Understanding Endorsements Omni San Antonio Hotel, San Antonio November 4, 2004 TLTA~Selling Title Insurance Marriott at the Capitol, Austin November 16, 2004 TLTA~Right Rules, Correct Calculations Workshop Plus Understanding Endorsements Omni Dallas Hotel Park West, Dallas November 17-18, 2004 TLTA~Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Seminar Omni Dallas Hotel Park West, Dallas November 25-26, 2004 Thanksgiving & Day After STG~Office Closed December 24 &27, 2004 Christmas Eve & Monday After STG~Office Closed January 20, 2005 STG Webinar -Community /Separate Property/ and Homestead by John Rothermel January 3, 2005 Monday after New Years STG~Office Closed February 8, 2005 TLTA~Right Rules, Correct Calculations WorkshopPlus Understanding Endorsements Marriott Westchase, Houston February 17, 2005 STG Webinar~Pesky Probate Problems by Bill Pratt 2005 Hill Country Seminar Thank you for taking the time to fill out our Advance Planning Questionnaire on the Hill Country Seminar, which will take place next spring. We have had a tremendous amount of responses and have you to thank for them! Your responses help us to make sure that we are planning a seminar that will be beneficial to you. Results will be tallied and we will make sure a number of these topics are presented. Stay tuned for additional information as details unfold. Records Update Thanks to all of you who have sent in your list of employee names, their birth date, and e- mail address. They have been mighty helpful to get to know all of you. Those of you that have not sent in your list, please go a head and do so. We tend to send a lot of important information via and you could be missing out! Forward your list or any changes in the future to Angela Fling via fax or afling@stewart.com.