Title Insurance

When an earthquake struck Turkey in August, Oktay Okatar and Nihat Kandal watched as portions of their country were reduced to rubble in a matter of minutes.Now, the two Turkish city planners are trying to get Izmit and other areas near Istanbul rebuilt -- and one Baltimore company is helping them along the way.Security Title, a title insurance company on Calvert Street, was host to Okatar and Kandal last week to discuss Baltimore's system of title and land registration and the need for property and title insurance in Turkey.

Dear Mr. Azrael:My wife and I are having a house built. Is an attorney an absolute requirement at closing? What exactly is the responsibility of an attorney at closing? And what will one do for us?Ben BrooksBaltimoreDear Mr. Brooks:At the closing on a newly constructed home, the buyer pays the balance of the purchase price, plus settlement costs. These extra charges normally include state and county transfer taxes, recording fees and fees for title examination and title insurance. Lender's fees and required escrows for taxes and insurance are also collected at closing.

The former employee of an Ellicott City property title agency pleaded guilty in Howard Circuit Court yesterday to charges she helped her boss cover up the loss of $1 million he allegedly stole and misappropriated from his clients.Patricia Horak, an Elkridge resident, worked for Joseph E. Goldberg Sr. at Land Title Research of Maryland Inc. as an office manager for 12 years. Yesterday, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit theft for her role in what state insurance officials have called one of the largest insurance fraud cases in Maryland history.

The former office manager for convicted embezzler Joseph E. Goldberg Sr. saw her cooperation with state prosecutors pay off yesterday when she received no jail time at her sentencing hearing in Howard County Circuit Court.Patricia Horak, 38, was given a suspended 15-year prison sentence as part of an agreement with the state attorney general's office.Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure imposed an additional five years of supervised probation, 1,000 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine.

CHICAGO -- Mrs. O'Leary and her cow have gotten a bum rap. Somebody else might have started the Great Chicago Fire.So, at least, says a title insurance company lawyer who has spent every other Saturday for the past two years burrowing into the underbelly of Chicago's most grievous disaster and most popular legend -- indeed, one of the most notorious yarns of urban American folklore.Richard F. Bales, a 45-year-old employee of Chicago Title Insurance Co., contends that his research throws water on the O'Leary cow-conflagration theory.

JUST BECAUSE the criminal justice system catches, convicts and sentences a swindler does not necessarily mean the thief's victims will be compensated.People can spend years filing lawsuits, obtaining court judgments and trying to collect, and still not get everything -- or anything -- owed them. Sometimes, the money disappears; often it is impossible to find.That is why it is hard for victims to get much satisfaction when someone admits in court to stealing money from them, particularly when the thefts come at vulnerable times.

A headline in some editions of The Sun yesterday improperly identified prosecutors seeking a jail sentence for convicted embezzler Joseph E. Goldberg Sr. The prosecutors were from the state attorney general's office. Also, the crime was 'u investigated by the Insurance Fraud Division of the Maryland Insurance Administration, along with the Criminal Investigation Division of the attorney general's office.The Sun regrets the errors.A former Ellicott City property title agent pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing nearly $1 million in what state prosecutors said was one of the largest scams of its kind in Maryland history.

Piney Orchard, Potomac Glen and River Downs were honored with inaugural Wildlife Sanctuary awards by the Land Development Council of the Home Builders Association of Maryland during a recent ceremony at River Downs.The council's new Wildlife Sanctuary Program is designed to recognize and promote the environmental efforts of the homebuilding industry. Certificates are awarded for creating or preserving natural habitats and for efforts to educate residents about the environment within their community.

Dear Mr. Gisriel: I own a property with my brother and my sister. My sister and I want to sell, but my brother wants to keep the house and rent it out. What are our options?Tom PetrickTimoniumDear Mr. Petrick: The easiest thing to do would be to buy out your brother's individual ownership interest or have your brother buy your and your sister's ownership interest in the house. If the house has equity in it, then you could probably arrange to refinance your existing mortgage and use the extra cash to purchase the respective ownership interest.

A former Ellicott City property title insurance agent, who is under criminal investigation by the state, has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against 17 people, including federal law enforcement agents and former business associates, alleging that they conspired against him after his firm was seized by state regulators two years ago.The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore by Joseph E. Goldberg Sr. of Elkridge, seeks a total of more than $180...

A real estate title company in Severna Park and Ocean City was shut down after as much as $2 million from its escrow account for property settlements allegedly turned up missing, according to court documents and state regulators. Maryland Insurance Commissioner Ralph S. Tyler ordered yesterday that business licenses for Day Title Inc. and owner Deborah A. Williams be suspended and revoked. The Maryland Insurance Administration issues licenses and regulates title companies, which conduct real estate closings.

A seemingly arcane policy change by mortgage investor Freddie Mac sheds new light on issues of much broader concern for consumers: Do you really understand where the money is flowing -- all the nooks and crannies -- when you take out a mortgage and pay thousands of dollars in fees at settlement? Is anyone required to explain to you what's really going on inside your home loan -- how it works and whether it could morph into something very different? And could any of this improve soon? Freddie Mac's Feb. 14 policy change affected a dark corner of the mortgage business -- splits of mortgage insurance premiums between lenders and insurers.

Rigged appraisals, lax underwriting and toxic loan products may dominate the headlines, but they are hardly the only issues causing problems in residential real estate. The federal government and state regulators are targeting other housing-related misdeeds that can cost consumers big money -- especially involving kickbacks among builders, real estate brokers, loan officers, mortgage bankers and title insurers. Buyers and sellers are rarely aware of the cash changing hands, and as a result they are paying needlessly higher prices for services.

A class action lawsuit seeking to recover millions of dollars in home equity allegedly bilked from hundreds of distressed homeowners in Maryland, Virginia and Washington was shifted to federal court yesterday, broadening its scope to multiple jurisdictions. The 76-page suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, targets Metropolitan Money Store Corp. of Lanham and other defendants and supplants a similar lawsuit filed in Prince George's County Circuit Court last month. Lawyers who prepared both suits yesterday asked that the state suit be dismissed.

Title insurance typically is a mandatory and large cost for most home purchasers and mortgage refinancers - often in the $1,000 to $2,000 range. But is it priced too high for what you actually get? Equally important: Do widespread referral relationships among real estate brokers, title agents and mortgage companies restrict price competition, create anti-consumer conflicts of interest, and discourage buyers from shopping for lower-cost title insurance and closing service options? The Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan watchdog agency of Congress, made an in-depth examination of the title industry over the past year and came up with some unsettling findings: "Multiple characteristics of current title insurance markets, as well as allegedly illegal activities by a number of those involved in the marketing of title insurance, suggest that normal competitive forces may not be working properly, raising questions about the prices consumers are paying."

Have you ever looked at the fees associated with a home purchase and wondered: Why am I paying so much for title insurance? Why do I have to pay $1,000 to $2,000 for coverage when payouts on claims involving actual title defects are minuscule? A congressional subcommittee held a landmark hearing in late April on that very subject, along with a related question: To what degree do illegal tie-ins among realty agents, mortgage brokers, homebuilders and title agents inflate the premiums that consumers pay at closing?

It's one of American real estate's seamier practices, and it's almost impossible for consumers to detect: kickbacks and sweetheart payoffs among realty agents, title and escrow companies, lawyers and lenders for referrals of homebuyers' mortgage or closing services. Now the federal government is mounting its most aggressive campaign in decades to stamp out illegal referral-fee schemes. Though it hasn't attracted widespread attention, the government's anti-kickback effort thus far this year has racked up six times the number of out-of-court settlements with alleged violators that it did in 2004.

It is by far the most common consumer complaint to the federal government about the home-buying process: Uncertainty about the bottom-line costs of obtaining and closing the mortgage. Unlike other major purchases, most homebuyers cannot be absolutely sure what fees they'll be expected to pay at settlement to their lender, title insurance company and other service providers connected with the transaction. Though buyers routinely receive "good-faith estimates" of their expenses, there's a gaping hole in the law that allows those costs to balloon - sometimes sharply - between the time they are made and final settlement.

JOHN (Jack) W. Brown, Jr., 87, died on September 27, 2005, at his residence at Blakehurst, 1055 West Joppa Rd, Towson, MD, after a long illness. Born in Baltimore, Mr. Brown spent his early years in Roanoke, VA and Chevy Chase, MD. He graduated from the University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Maryland Law School in Baltimore after five years of service as an officer in the US Navy from 1941-1946. Mr. Brown began his business career as a title examiner for the Maryland Title Guarantee Company in 1947.

A NEW FINANCIAL settlement between the federal government and one of the country's best known real estate brokerages offers homebuyers insights into the under-the-table games that might be played with settlement fees. Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate Inc. agreed to pay the federal government $250,000 to settle charges that some of its offices illegally paid higher commissions, provided gifts and other incentives to realty agents who steered purchasers to an affiliated title agency.