Howling at all this corrosion
The best part about this website to me is the input I get from y’all. I get emails with subject suggestions and as I’ve mentioned before, I love the peanut gallery (comment section). And no, I’m not painting the house fire engine red. The front door, yes. The house no.
My inbox has been hammered on this subject and I just haven’t had a moment to read through everything and put together a thoughtful rant post. It’s time.
AB957 passed. It passed in spite of Ticor’s attempting to black ball Property ID. It passed in spite of all the opposition from the banking industry. It passed because it was good and right. Unfortunately, it got neutered along the way. Some of the well written articles in support of AB957 can be found here and here. And of course in the PBE archives.
Like anything else, if people would act right there would be no need for legislation. But when an industry bullies the consuming public, they get the white hot light of the legislature shining up their ass. And in this case, rightly so. This is the same industry who has been foreclosing on peoples homes while simultaneously doing a “work out” in their short sale or loan mod department. An industry so out of control and morally reprehensible that they can’t even bother to properly staff these departments to assure some sort of communication between the two divisions, and ultimately ensure that they’ve done the best job that they could for their customers. They deserve the white hot light of the legislature up their ass. Actually they deserve a red hot poker up their ass.
Unfortunately some wording was added to Ms Galgiani’s bill that will allow the slippery snake oil salesman of the title and banking industries to worm their way around AB957. Now buyers are required to fill out this form with every offer:
NOTICE REGARDING BUYER’S RIGHT TO SELECT ESCROW AGENT AND/OR TITLE INSURER.
The Buyer has the right to make an independent selection of the entity that will provide the title insurance covering the property and/or escrow agent used in connection with the sale of the property.
Buyer also has the right to agree to accept the services of a title insurer and/or an escrow agent recommended by the seller, if written notice of the right to make an independent selection of those services is provided by the seller to the buyer.
Buyer acknowledges he/she received prior notice of his/her right to make an independent selection of the entity that will provide the title insurance covering the property and/or escrow agent used in connection with the property sale.
Buyer: ___________________________ Date: _____________
Buyer: ___________________________ Date: _____________
That ought to do it eh? Not so fast Sparky. That has to be filled out and submitted with the offer. Because the seller can choose any offer they want, they’ll just choose the offer that allows them to drive the title and escrow while making the buyer’s pay that company’s exorbitant fees. Yeah, exorbitant. I’ve heard a ton of arguments about these so called “deep discounts” and “bulk pricing” that are supposedly being offered by these REO units. Bullshit. The last one I priced out was over $500 more at the Evil Empire than if I had sent the same transaction to Old Repulsive. On a $120k condo. That’s obscene. I’m sure the moment it was clear that Schwarzenegger was going to sign that bitch the title companies and the banks were on the phone to each other trying to work out a way to get around it. Shame on both of you. If you would act honorably none of this would be necessary in the first place.
Speaking of doing business in an honorable way, Schwarenegger signed a total seven bills into law the other day. All aimed directly at the banking, mortgage and title industry. Knowing what a lot of us know about how those industries behaved in the last 10 years, they deserve every one of them. AB 260 says that mortgage brokers can’t steer borrowers to risky, high interest rate loans when they qualify for better loans. You’d think that it would be a simple matter of morals, you put your borrower in the best product for them, but not the slimeballs who were in the mortgage industry in the last 10 years, they steered their client towards the product with the highest rip. That practice has been illegal in the securities industry for years. It’s about time the mortgage industry caught up. Kudos to Ted Lieu for bringing it to the legislature and kudos to the Govenator for signing it. AB 260 also outlaws neg-am loans, essentially the product that Herb Sandler made his fortune on. Now let’s get after Herb with a red hot poker.
SB 36 (Calderon) says that all residential loan originators have to be licensed. We all know what was happening and what this now means. Thanks to Mike Feuer, it’s now a felony to commit fraud on a residential loan application. (AB239) The most bizarre is AB1160 requiring mortgage loan documents to be written in the same language that the verbal negotiations were conducted in. So are we now printing loan docs in Farsi, Mandarin, Hindi, Khmer, Vietnamese and Tagalog? Or does it mean that the negotiations will now all occur in English? I understand the need, I just question how well thought out this one was. Still Schwarenegger stood up for the people of the State of California, and that’s his job. And while he gets a lot of well deserved criticism, he does try to do what’s best for the State. And at PBE, that’s worth something.
AB1160 is well meant, but it seems to me that a number of lenders will abandon California due to this. Who is going to check and see if the translation is accurate? If the note is sold, does the new lender check that? How is anybody supposed to know what language was used? If my name is O’Reilly and I come from Mexico City and speak no English?
Sounds like a lawyers paradise..
I’m with OTG on that one. I haven’t read the bill, but what if there is an interpreter present, so that the “negotiations” were conducted in English on one side and something else on the other?
Another major issue is that legal documents don’t always translate well. Npt all countries have the same concepts of property we do; they do it differently, and their languages can’t express the same concepts.
I haven’t read these yet but I wonder if this will open the door to Title Co.’s advertising directly to the consumer..and what pandoras box that’ll lead to?
Direct to consumer by title companies has been tried from time to time. The effect is immediate cutoff by the local brokers. Since that’s where the bulk of the business is, it will take some major cojones to try. It would work for FSBO’s but pretty much nothing else.
Last time I checked, the person who pays me is hte client. These ass hats think the bank is the thier client. That is the problem.
If you’re paying title and escrow fees, your the client. Messrs Evil and Bloodless, don’t get that. Dinty Jr. says he gets it and he’s spent tons of money on software that is supposed win homeownwers as “clients for life”, but…
http://www.closing.com is a portal endorsed by the insurance commissioner. It got its start under Garamendi and the cooperation continues through Poisner. This site does nothing, however, if the bank only takes offers that allows it to choose title and escrow (and that’s the way the empires want it).
I don’t see how AB1160 is going to work or be enforced. I was talking to a title guy yesterday who said essentially all they’ll do is tell them in English, make them sign some affidavit in English that says it’s been explained and leave it at that.
I think they were thinking the issue was Spanish, but I see it from the other side. It’s all those languages and many more.