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🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

💳 The Credit-Score Shift Just Got an Implementation Date

We’ve been following the long-running move away from a one-credit-model mortgage world, including the questions around FHFA’s rollout of VantageScore 4.0. This week, that story moved from policy to execution: FHA set January 1, 2027 as the implementation date for VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T, while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are already permitting approved lenders to deliver loans using VantageScore 4.0. For title companies, the update is not a new settlement rule; it is the next step in changing which borrowers can qualify to reach the closing table in the first place. (HUD.gov)

🤖 We Asked Whether AI Could Read the Records. DataTrace Tested What It Missed.

In our recent discussion of AI-aggregated title search, the central issue was not whether AI can retrieve public records; it was whether scattered, inconsistent public data is complete and connected enough to reconstruct a dependable property history using AI. DataTrace has now put numbers around that problem: among 184 evaluable residential files across Arizona, California, Florida and Texas, public-record-only AI missed at least one title matter in 75 files, or 40.8%. This adds real-world evidence to the same question we raised before: AI can read records; but dependable title search still depends heavily on the quality, completeness and relationships in the data underneath them and that level of quality might not exist.

🩴 Florida’s Beach Fight Is Really a Title-and-Boundary Fight Wearing Flip-Flops

In Walton County, the decade-long battle over whether the public can use privately owned dry sand has produced a patchwork of public access points, private-beach claims, settlement agreements and ongoing quiet-title fights. Florida repealed the 2018 law that had forced local governments to prove customary use parcel by parcel, but NPR’s reporting shows the practical mess is far from resolved: where the public can actually sit, walk or cross still depends on the history and legal status of the specific stretch of sand. For title examiners and coastal closing teams, “beachfront” is not enough—you may be dealing with private ownership, customary-use rights, settlement terms, access easements and litigation that materially affect what the buyer thinks they are purchasing. (Courtesy of Mark Nemetz, Residential Mortgage/Title Consultant)

🏛️ What If the Public Comment Process Isn’t Actually Public?

Title professionals have spent a lot of time lately being asked to comment on federal rules, RFIs and policy changes. Now Better Markets has sued the Federal Reserve and Vice Chair Michelle Bowman, alleging that Fed officials secretly coordinated with major banks in a way that distorted the public rulemaking record for proposed capital rules. Those are allegations, not findings—but if a comment process can be shaped behind the scenes, it raises an uncomfortable question for every regulated industry participating in these exercises: if something similar happened elsewhere, would the public participants even know?

🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to…

🪵 How a Trade Fight With Canada Finds Its Way to the Closing Table

New tariffs on wood products in the escalating U.S.–Canada trade fight have reopened an argument with no tidy answer: builders say higher material costs make already-expensive homes harder to build, while domestic producers argue trade protection can strengthen U.S. lumber capacity. A plywood tariff does not change a title workflow, but follow the chain far enough and it can change what gets built, what buyers can afford, and eventually how many transactions reach the closing table. Sometimes the forces shaping title volume start several industries—and several policy decisions—away from title itself.

This is sneak peek at just one tiny insight coming out of our upcoming 🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳 Real Estate Market Forecast. Subscribers will get it for free. Upgrade now so you don’t miss a thing.

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

Stewart Just Bought More of the Mortgage Lifecycle

Stewart acquired ProTitleUSA and DocSolutionUSA, adding title analytics, portfolio due diligence, document generation, recording, curative and collateral-review capabilities to its centralized title services. The expansion reaches beyond the closing table into the assignment, release, curative and servicing work that follows loans through transfers, defaults and capital-markets transactions.

SoftPro + Alliant National Pull Title Search Into SoftPro 360

SoftPro expanded its Alliant National integration so users can order and receive title search and examination services directly inside SoftPro 360, building on the existing CPL and policy-jacket connection. That removes another handoff—and another round of duplicate entry, emails and status chasing—from the production workflow.

⚖️Legal

Regulatory updates, Claims, Lawsuits, & Enforcement

National

Congress Could Give FHFA a Direct Line Into the Vendor Stack

H.R. 10230, the Strengthening Oversight for the Financial Sector Act of 2026, would let FHFA regulate and examine services performed for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks as though the regulated entity performed the work itself. The bill, introduced September 2 and now with House Financial Services, would also revive NCUA oversight of credit-union service providers. For title, settlement, data and technology companies contracting directly into that ecosystem, third-party oversight could move beyond lender questionnaires and contract provisions into actual regulator examination if the bill becomes law.

ROAD Is Law. Some of Its Best Title Opportunities Are Still Waiting to Be Built.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law July 11, but implementation requires dozens of new agency actions, and some programs still need rulemaking, guidance or future funding before anyone can use them. That includes the provision we previously flagged allowing HUD to create a small-dollar mortgage pilot with grants that can cover title insurance: the law gives HUD up to a year to establish that pilot. The opportunity is still there; it just is not a product title agencies can build a strategy around yet.

State

Claim Stories/Court Stories

⚖️ Meanwhile, in the Courts...

📢Announcement

Our weekly rotating features:

• 🤖PropTech, Cyber Security & Fraud

• 🏢 Commercial Real Estate

• 💸Business Growth

• ⚙️ Operations

are moving to Tuesdays.

💼 Job Postings

• Title Searcher - Near North Title Group
  Fort Wayne, IN
  Searches public records and title history to support title production and examination work.

• Commercial Title Examiner - Stewart Title
  Richmond County, GA
  Examines commercial title records and identifies liabilities, defects and insurability issues for real estate transactions.

• Commercial/Acreage Title Examiner - Compass International Holdings
  Remote / Texas
  Focuses on examination of Texas commercial and acreage title files for a remote national-title operation.

• Commercial Title Officer Examiner - Fidelity National Financial
  Lacey, WA
  Handles commercial title examination and title-officer responsibilities for complex real estate transactions.

• Real Estate Services Title Agent Senior - HDR
  Greater Cleveland, OH
  Senior title role supporting real estate and right-of-way work, including title research and property documentation.

• Commercial Title Assistant - First American
  Remote / Tampa, FL | $20.34-$27.12/hour
  Supports commercial title files, research, escrow activity, recordings, endorsements and multi-site transaction work.

• Commercial Escrow Officer - Chicago Title
  Raleigh, NC
  Manages commercial settlements from contract through funding, including closing documents, escrow coordination and complex transaction requirements.

• Escrow Assistant - ASK Consulting
  Phoenix, AZ | $23/hour
  Six-month onsite role supporting residential, resale, new-construction, refinance, relocation and timeshare escrow transactions.

• Escrow Officer - First Source Title
  Frisco/Plano, TX
  Licensed Texas escrow officer role running residential and commercial files from contract receipt through funding and post-closing.

• Title Closer / Escrow Officer - Coast-to-Coast Title & Escrow Services
  Seminole, FL | $15-$25/hour
  Coordinates title settlement and closing activity, including document preparation, execution, fund disbursement and multi-state compliance.

💼 Place Your Job Posting Ad Here

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

🐐 Membership | 🔍 Find Answers | 🛒 Shop | 📢 Partner With Us

Brought to you by our friends, contributors & sponsors:🔒 Closinglock, 🌍 Foreign Tax CPA, 🪄Business Witch Academy, 🧱 Brickhouse Consulting, 🖊️Dotted Line Signings & Our Paying Readers
📢 Be a Sponsor

🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

👤 The Owner and the Insured Are Not Always the Same Person

This short explainer highlights a recurring investor trap: moving property between an individual and an LLC or other entity can change who owns the property without the owner realizing it may also change the title-insurance picture. “I already have a policy” is less important than two questions: Who is named as the insured, and who owns the property now?

🕵️ Consumers Are Hearing “Title Fraud” and Assuming All Protection Is the Same

There is a growing consumer-education problem: deed-monitoring services, fraud alerts and title insurance are increasingly discussed as if they do the same job. They do not. That confusion creates an opening for title agents to explain, clearly and without fearmongering, what an owner’s policy covers, what monitoring products actually do, and where neither one replaces good fraud prevention.

Follow Hallmark Abstract Service on Substack:

🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to…

Find our newsletter helpful? Share it with someone you know, or to your social media.

Share Wicked Title Forum

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

⚖️Legal

National

State

From the Docket…

⚖️ Meanwhile, in the Courts...

🤖PropTech, Cyber Security & Fraud

Bitcoin-Backed Mortgages Are No Longer Just a Crypto Press Release

The first reported Fannie Mae-backed mortgage using bitcoin as collateral closed in June, but the structure is more interesting than the headline. The borrower does not give Fannie Mae bitcoin instead of a down payment. The transaction combines a normal conforming first mortgage with a separate crypto-backed loan that supplies the down-payment funds, allowing the borrower to pledge bitcoin rather than sell it.

Someone Sold the Church Land—and Apparently Got a Dead Woman to Sign

Land intended for a North Carolina church was fraudulently sold for $110,000 using forged signatures—including the name of an owner who died in 2021. The buyer was also reportedly deceived, and the property has since been deeded back to the rightful owner. It is an especially ugly example of vacant-land fraud—and of why seller verification must test more than whether the person on the phone can recite information found in the public record.

📖 Book of the Month

📢 Promote Your Book Here

🎟️Events

• 🎟️ Evaluating Emerging Real Estate Business Concepts

  • 📅 September 9, 2026 | ⏰ 12:00–2:00 p.m. ET | 📍 Register Here (Thesis Driven)

• 🎟️ Missouri LTA Annual Convention

  • 📅 September 9th–11th | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Kansas City, MO

• 🎟️ LTAC Conference

  • 📅 September 9th–11th | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Vail, CO

• 🎟️ Missouri LTA Annual Convention

  • 📅 September 9th–11th | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Kansas City, MO

See all events

💼 Job Postings

• Title Officer — Zillow
  Remote | $28.60–$45.20/hr depending on location
  Works across search, examination and curative matters for Zillow Closing, coordinating with attorneys, underwriters, search vendors and transaction parties.

• Title Insurance Underwriter — Heritage Title
  Wake Forest, NC | Pay not listed
  Supports title underwriting, customer service and administrative work for Heritage Title, part of the Investors Title family.

• Title Insurance Examiner — Knight Barry Title
  Burnsville, MN / Remote | $65,000–$80,000
  Examines deeds, mortgages, easements, judgments, taxes, liens and other recorded matters; remote work is available but applicants must live near Burnsville for training.

• National Title Curative Processor – Refinance — CLOSED Title
  Remote | $65,000–$80,000
  Handles title clearing and curative work on high-volume and legally complex refinance files across multiple states.

• Title Commitment Specialist — Flowers Title Companies
  Remote — Texas residents | $19.75–$24/hr
  Prepares and reviews Texas title commitments, requiring prior title experience and familiarity with state-specific title requirements.

• Title Assistant — First Integrity Title Company
  Glendale, CO | $50,000–$75,000
  Searches and evaluates title records and prepares title files, with prior title-industry experience required and a producer license considered a plus.

• Experienced Title Insurance Closer — Summit Settlement Services
  Remote | $23–$27/hr
  Manages closing files in a fast-paced remote environment, coordinating the details needed to move transactions through closing.

• Licensed Title Insurance Producer — Rally Point Title Agency
  Old Bridge, NJ | $1,000–$10,000/month
  New-business-development role for a licensed New Jersey title producer focused on building referral relationships and generating title orders.

• Title Examiner – Maryland — First American
  Columbia, MD / Remote | Pay not listed
  Examines Maryland title for First American’s national production operation, identifying ownership, liens, exceptions and other matters affecting insurability.

• Title Examiner – Part-Time — Title Now
  Remote | $18–$25/hr
  Flexible 15–20-hour-per-week position for an experienced examiner, offering an unusual part-time option for someone who wants to stay in title without a full-time production schedule.

💼 Place Your Job Posting Ad Here

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

🐐 Membership | 🔍 Find Answers | 🛒 Shop | 📢 Partner With Us

Brought to you by our friends, contributors & sponsors:🔒 Closinglock, 🌍 Foreign Tax CPA, 🪄Business Witch Academy, 🧱 Brickhouse Consulting, 🖊️Dotted Line Signings & Our Paying Readers
📢 Be a Sponsor

🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

📄 The Title Work Behind Truist Park

Amanda shares the behind-the-scenes story of how Callaway Title became involved in the Atlanta Braves’ move to Cobb County and the development of what became Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta. The project required far more than ordinary acquisition work, including confidential land purchases and the relocation of a major Colonial Pipeline easement. It’s a rare look at the kind of complicated, high-stakes title work happening underneath a project most people only ever see as a stadium and entertainment district. Watch the story on YouTube.

🏦 A Philadelphia Bank Failed. The Liens Didn’t.

Pennsylvania regulators closed Tioga-Franklin Savings Bank on August 21, with another institution assuming its deposits and substantially all assets. For title teams, the wrinkle is simple: loans, liens and payoff obligations survive the bank. When ownership or servicing changes mid-transaction, confirming who can issue a payoff or release becomes part of the file—and a legitimate transition can also make fraudulent “updated instructions” more believable. - Curtesy of Mark Nemetz, Residential Mortgage/Title Consultant

💾 When Being Offline Is a Feature: Romania Land Registry Attack Shows the Value of Local Record Security

A cyberattack disrupted Romania’s centralized land-record system, and the Land Title Association of Mississippi noticed the awkward upside of less-centralized local records: one attack cannot take down everything at once. The larger lesson is business continuity. If your recorder, search system or e-recording platform disappears for days instead of hours, does your operation have an alternate path—or just a refresh button?

🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to…

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

🤖 First American Gives 500 Sales Reps an AI Sidekick

First American has rolled out Salesforce Agentforce to an initial 500 sales reps, with five AI-assisted workflows built around the company’s own sales playbook and CRM data. The interesting part isn’t “AI does sales.” It’s what they chose to automate: pre-call research that previously meant checking four systems and could take 30+ minutes, account and relationship summaries, post-meeting notes, pipeline analysis, and proposed CRM updates that still require human approval. First American says it is targeting a 30–40% productivity gain. Salesforce’s case study offers a surprisingly specific look at what AI-assisted title sales actually looks like in production —and where First American is deliberately keeping a human in control.

🎧 A 1031 Podcast Your Commercial Team May Actually Want to Bookmark

First American Exchange Company launched The 1031 Brief, a monthly podcast aimed at investors and the professionals helping them navigate exchanges—including title and escrow teams. Early episodes cover 1031 basics, market conditions and exchange planning, with future episodes promising transaction scenarios and expert conversations. This is less “new workflow technology” than a useful client-conversation resource: something commercial teams can use to sharpen their own 1031 knowledge or share with investors who need to understand the process before everyone is staring down an identification deadline. Listen to The 1031 Brief here.

⚖️Legal

National

🧭 Federal Regulators Are Stepping Back. The Compliance Map Is Getting More Complicated.

The federal retreat from aggressive supervision does not mean mortgage compliance is getting simpler. Dodd Frank Update reports that state regulators are increasingly filling the space, leaving financial institutions to reconcile federal priorities with a growing patchwork of state expectations. Title agencies tied closely to lender compliance should expect more—not fewer—questions about state-specific procedures, documentation and vendor controls.

🧾 1099-S Filing Is Moving. January 1 Is Closer Than It Looks.

The IRS is retiring FIRE for 1099-S filing and moving submissions to IRIS beginning January 1, 2027. SoftPro’s transition notice says its Pro1099 users will stay in the existing workflow, with both CSV and electronic filing options planned. Even if your software vendor is handling the plumbing, this belongs on the year-end checklist now—January is a lousy time to discover that the process responsible for reporting every seller transaction has changed.

State

Claim Stories/Court Stories

Two cases this week hinge on a deceptively simple question: when something looks wrong in the title history, how much does that defect actually change?

One problem mattered less than you might expect. Another survived a transaction many buyers assume wipes the slate clean.

💬 Join the Conversation

A reader raised a deceptively simple question under our recent story about property-data brokers producing the same errors from the same underlying records: if three vendors all repeat the same bad source data, have you independently verified anything—or just confirmed the same mistake three times?

It was a great question, but then I stumbled across a YouTube video that raised more questions that, as best as I can tell, no one is asking yet, but I think they should be.

Join me on Wednesday for a special edition that will probably raise more questions than it answers, but I hope you’ll join me in the comments and share your thoughts and experiences with us.

💼 Job Postings

• National Residential Escrow Officer — First American
  Remote — New York | $29.30–$39.07/hour
  Handles national residential escrow files, including title clearance, settlement statements, closing packages, funds, recording, and final statements.

• Senior Title Examiner — Pippin Title
  Remote — U.S. | $50,000–$80,000/year
  Reviews nationwide title searches and works with examiners, underwriters, and abstractors to resolve complex title questions and ensure report quality.

• Title Examiner — Fidelity National Financial
  Maitland, FL | Hybrid
  Searches and examines Florida title records, validates documents and legal descriptions, and prepares title packages and clearance requirements.

• Title Coordinator — Old Republic Title
  Chicago, IL | $26–$30/hour
  Coordinates national commercial multi-site and multi-state transactions from order entry through title work, closing documentation, and policy issuance.

• Sales Representative I — Stewart Title
  Indianapolis, IN
  Develops title and real-estate-services business through sales, marketing, customer relationships, and local market development.

• Title Insurance | Commercial Escrow Talent — Godot Consulting Group
  Detroit, MI | Hybrid | $85,000–$150,000/year
  Manages national commercial escrow accounts and multi-state transactions while maintaining escrow records and relationships with customers and brokers.

• Title Examiner — AMT Title Services, Inc.
  Remote — U.S. | $45,000–$65,000/year
  Examines deeds, mortgages, liens, ownership histories, legal descriptions, and other public records to identify title issues affecting real estate transactions.

• Title Search Coordinator — Nobleserve LLC
  Pittsburgh, PA
  Conducts ownership and title research, coordinates search work, and helps identify liens, encumbrances, and other issues affecting property title.

• Title Search and Examiner — Legal Land Title, LLC
  Ozark, MO
  Searches and examines title, analyzes liens and encumbrances, reviews legal descriptions and surveys, and prepares title-search reports.

• Commercial Title Examiner — Chicago Title
  Independence, MO
  Examines complex commercial title records, interprets title evidence, and identifies issues affecting ownership, insurability, and closing requirements.

💼 Place Your Job Posting Ad Here

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

🐐 This Month at Wicked Title…

We shared over 40 new job openings, 12 different industry events, regulatory updates across 14 different states, and did deep dives into your payment processing systems, major federal regulatory shake-ups, the trends and patterns that may shape your next business growth opportunites…

💸 Payment Processing

We took some deep dives into payment processing with:

• Your Earnest Money Workflow Has Two Dead Zones from 🔒 Closinglock

• A panel discussion called 🐐 The Last Mile Problem: Why Money Movement Still Slows Closings from delu❌e

  • 🎙️Listen | 📽️ Watch | 📄Read

• How Title Companies Can Modernize Disbursements Without Disrupting Escrow Operations which was published to our Medium channel, so email readers, you might have missed this one.

• Is it Time to Bring Your Payment Processing into The Digital Age?

• Payload Wants the Closing Money to Stop Traveling by Anxiety

⚖️Regulatory News

CFPB Made a Lot of Waves with a Call for Comments on TRID Reforms

It actually started back in July when we ran:

as well as 🐐 TRID Data: Closing Costs, Consumer Confusion and Title Workflows

The final comment tally was 339, and I’m not talking 339 1-2 sentence comments either. Over 80 comments were full document attachments that had to be downloaded separately to review and generally spanned multiple pages. But, I went through it all for you, and summed up industry sentiment in:

For more deep dives into what the industry is asking the CFPB to do, I also published:

• Who Wants What From TRID? The CFPB Comments Reveal Some Very Strange Bedfellows

• TRID Reform: The 9 Things Title and Escrow Professionals Actually Want CFPB to Fix

Other regulatory news making waves this month included:

• Home Equity Investment with the Home Equity Integrity Act at the national level and multiple state actions as well.

• A few heavy weights filed briefs with court in favor of Fidelity’s fight with the FinCEN Real Estate Reporting Rule.

• Over a dozen states made our Sunday regulatory round ups including: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia

🚨 Wicked Title Group Memberships

We rolled out a group membership program so your whole office or organization can gain access to all of our content at a bundled rate. We’ll never leave our small agencies in the dust, discounts start as low at 5 person groups. Learn more →

🐐 Wicked Trends & Forces 🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to & opportunities for business growth…

We released our first full color, magazine style issue in both print and digital flipbook formats. This issue focused on The Risks, Market Signals, and Emerging Opportunities Hidden Beneath the Title Industry Headlines. This is just a summary of potential business opportunities and niche markets, it’s a primer on how I read the headlines, spot the patterns, and figure out what’s coming next. If you want to see the emerging market shifts before everyone else, you don’t want to miss this peak inside my process and the trends I see forming now.

Other trends, patterns and growth opportunites we covered this month included:

• The Housing Market Is Still Stuck. Title Companies Are Making More Money Anyway.

• Turn 1031 Exchanges Into a Business Line, Not Just a Weird File

• Maybe Growth Isn’t More Closings. Maybe It’s Better Closings.

• Growing your income as a notary by building your business or becoming a teacher.

• Commercial

  • Thinking About Commercial? Start Smaller Than the Skyscraper

  • The Dirt Is Only Half the Deal: Data Centers Are Becoming Infrastructure Title Work

  • North Carolina Just Turned Foreign-Ownership Screening Into a Closing Document

  • Florida CDDs: The Tax Bill Is a Clue, Not the Whole File
    

🐐 Wicked Title Folks🧠

🖊️ Want to be a content contributor? Contact us

📜More Educational Resources

• 🎥 Standard Vs Enhanced Insurance Policies

• 🎥 Underwriting 101: The Conveyancer’s Guide to Massachusetts Underwriting

• 📄 NON-JUDICIAL TAX SALES PURSUANT TO VIRGINIA CODE § 58.1-3975

• 📄 Common Types of Illegal Real Estate Deeds and How to Identify Them

• 📄 Residential Property Appraisals: Process, Costs, and Requirements

• 📄 How to Remove a Fraudulent Deed — Explains the legal process for challenging and removing a forged or fraudulently recorded deed.

• 📄 Land Court’s New Process Expedites Deregistration in Massachusetts

• 📄 How to Request HOA Documents for Escrow Officers: 9 Steps for Closing

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

🐐 About Wicked Title | 🔍 Search the Knowledge Base | 📢 Be a Sponsor

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

🐐 Membership | 🔍 Find Answers | 🛒 Shop | 📢 Partner With Us

Thank you to our friends, contributors & sponsors:🔒 Closinglock, 🌍 Foreign Tax CPA, 🪄Business Witch Academy, 🧱 Brickhouse Consulting, 🖊️Dotted Line Signings & Our Paying Readers
📢 Be a Sponsor

📢Announcements

🐐 Today Only: You Decide What Wicked Title Is Worth

I’ve never done this before.

For Sunday, August 23 through midnight August 24, I’m turning off the normal $68/month price and letting you choose what you pay for Wicked Title Forum.

If Wicked Title saves you hours of digging, helps you catch something before it becomes a problem, gives you an idea that makes your agency money, keeps you entertained, or simply makes you better at your job, pick the number that feels fair to you.

Maybe that’s $5. Maybe it’s $15, $25, $40, or the full $68.

I’m not going to tell you what the work is worth. You’ve been reading it. You know.

And if price has been the only thing keeping you on the free side, today there really isn’t a reason to stay there.

Your paid subscription opens up everything I keep behind the paywall: the deeper stories in Title Underground, Wednesday features, original research, practical analysis, downloadable tools and templates, digital magazines, and the growing archive built specifically for people who actually work in title and settlement.

For one day, you set the price and pay what you believe Wicked Title is worth to you.

Offer ends at midnight August 24.

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🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

Your Co-Owner Left. Their Ownership Interest Did Not.

A co-owner who moves out, stops paying and disappears does not automatically surrender their share of the property; their interest remains in the title until it is transferred or legally extinguished. Depending on the facts, resolution may require a voluntary deed, partition sale or quiet-title action—and even a signed quitclaim deed does not remove the departing owner from the mortgage. It is a useful explainer for the seller who arrives expecting years of solo mortgage payments to have magically converted shared ownership into sole title.

Zillow’s RESPA Lawsuit Refuses to Stay Dead

A federal judge dismissed the previous version in July, but the buyers suing Zillow filed a third amended complaint on August 17 with five plaintiffs and a narrower RESPA theory. They allege Zillow’s Premier Agent and Flex programs provided valuable buyer leads in exchange for referrals to Zillow Home Loans—essentially arguing that the alleged “thing of value” wasn’t a check, but access to business. Zillow disputes the allegations. For title companies living in an increasingly complicated world of lead platforms, preferred-provider networks and referral ecosystems, this is a RESPA case worth watching even though title agents aren’t the defendants.

Santa Barbara’s Fraud Report Reads Like a Title Examiner’s Nightmare File

Santa Barbara County’s new Real Estate Fraud Prosecution Program annual report includes alleged false instruments, forged documents, mortgage fraud and a quitclaim deed used to transfer an elderly woman’s $1.2 million condominium out of her trust. In that pending case, prosecutors say title to both affected properties has since been transferred back to the victim, while another open case involves an allegedly fraudulent UCC financing statement submitted for recording. The county says referrals rose from 20 to 27 this year, and its fraud unit continues working directly with the Clerk-Recorder-Assessor’s Office to identify suspicious filings—an unusually concrete look at what happens after fraudulent documents make it into the public record.

🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to…

The Housing Market Is Still Stuck. Title Companies Are Making More Money Anyway.

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

ATTOM Is Making Property Records Callable by AI

ATTOM just added three specialized AI agents and an expanded MCP server, allowing AI systems to retrieve and work with its property data through natural-language requests instead of relying entirely on traditional API integrations. That gets much more interesting for title when you look at what sits underneath it: ATTOM’s datasets include recorded deeds, ownership and vesting information, mortgages, liens, releases, assignments, document numbers and even title-company data. ATTOM specifically markets its transaction history to mortgage and title companies for ownership validation.

ATTOM has not launched an AI title search or examination product. But it has made a large collection of title-relevant public-record data easier for AI agents and automated workflows to call, analyze and combine with other tasks. That opens a much more interesting door than another chatbot: title technology developers—and potentially sophisticated agencies and underwriters—can build AI-assisted research, triage and due-diligence workflows on top of structured recorded-property data without starting every integration from scratch.

⚖️Legal

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Claim Stories

Connecticut Court Says Fidelity Doesn’t Have to Defend Beach-Easement Fight

A Connecticut judge has reaffirmed that Fidelity National Title Insurance Co. does not have to defend homeowner Maria Genedina Gottlieb in litigation over a beach-access easement affecting her Fairfield property. The underlying dispute, Ringel v. Gottlieb, centers on ambiguous deed language granting access to the “Beach and Waters of Long Island Sound”; Connecticut’s Appellate Court previously reversed the trial court’s interpretation and sent that easement question back for a new trial. In the separate coverage case, the court granted Gottlieb’s request to reargue but ultimately left summary judgment for Fidelity intact, finding no duty to defend under the title policy.

⚙️ Operations

🔒 Closinglock’s Nicole Krouse Named a 2026 Rising Star

At 37, Nicole Krouse, VP of Marketing, has been recognized by HousingWire for her role in repositioning the company from a secure-wire-instructions provider into a broader secure-payments platform. Krouse is credited with helping drive five major product launches, more than 70% year-over-year growth in marketing-sourced pipeline, a 30% increase in SecurePay adoption, and a sharp expansion of Closinglock’s media presence. Her advice to her younger self is wonderfully practical: “keep laying track.” Borrowing from a Shonda Rhimes quote, Krouse says the train of production is always coming—markets move, customers change, and growth does not wait for the perfect plan—so leadership means building ahead of the moment rather than scrambling when it arrives.

📣 The Hidden Communication Work Slowing Down Closings

SoftPro identifies five familiar communication drains: constant status requests, scattered documents, duplicate data entry, customers expecting real-time updates, and the pressure to make the closing experience feel different from everyone else’s. The company naturally positions ClosingsLIVE as the answer, but the more useful exercise is to look at the five bottlenecks and ask how many highly paid humans in your office are still spending their day manually moving information that could move itself.

💰 When Talking Shop With Competitors Becomes Talking Prices

Comparing notes with other title agents can be useful. Comparing what everybody plans to charge can become something else entirely. This plain-English primer on price fixing explains horizontal price coordination, market allocation, bid rigging, wage fixing and the important difference between competitors independently arriving at similar prices and actually agreeing to them. Useful reading before the next conversation at an industry event wanders farther into pricing strategy than it probably should.

You Might also like:

🐐 How to Avoid Accidentally Violating Anti-Trust Laws: A True Story About What Not To Say on the Internet

💼 Job Postings

• Commercial Escrow Assistant — First American Title
  Denver, CO | $20.31–$27.09/hour
  Supports commercial closings with document preparation, settlement-statement data, disbursements, customer communication and closing follow-up.

• Commercial Escrow Officer — First American Title
  Remote — New York
  Manages commercial escrow transactions and coordinates closing requirements, funds, documents and communications among transaction parties.

• Escrow Operations Coordinator — First American Title
  Remote — U.S.
  Provides centralized title and escrow production support across First American’s mortgage, commercial, direct and agency operations.

• Title Insurance Underwriter — Investors Title Insurance Company
  Fayetteville, NC
  Reviews title orders, commitments, policies and endorsements while supporting underwriting decisions, recording and customer service.

• Senior Title Examiner — Old Republic Title
  Remote — U.S. | $28–$36/hour
  Examines public records and legal documents, verifies property and tax information and identifies title issues affecting insurability.

• Senior Title Examiner — Stewart Title
  Remote — U.S.; Florida experience required
  Examines public and tax records, prepares title commitments and handles more complex title issues while serving as a resource to less-experienced team members.

• Escrow Coordinator — Stewart Title
  Richmond, TX
  Supports residential and commercial escrow files with balancing, settlement statements, checks, wires and post-closing disbursement.

• Escrow Officer — Stewart Title
  Fairhope, AL / Morristown, TN
  Manages residential and commercial escrow transactions from account opening through settlement while coordinating funds, documents and transaction parties.

• Escrow Closer — HomeServices of America
  Birmingham, AL
  Prepares and conducts closings, reviews title evidence, resolves title defects and handles recording and final closing packages.

• Title Insurance Closing Assistant — Knight Barry Title Group
  Minocqua, WI
  Assists with escrow files, closing documents, ledgers, checks, wires, e-recordings and customer questions about title and escrow services.

💼 Place Your Job Posting Ad Here

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Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

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The most interesting thing about the CFPB docket is not that people think TRID has problems.

It is how many completely different problems they think it has.

Lenders are worried about timing, liability and tolerances. Title and escrow are worried about bad numbers, late coordination and rules that do not match the closing. Consumers are worried that “flexibility” will erase protections. Appraisers, credit-data companies and tech vendors found entirely different pieces of the disclosure they want CFPB to reconsider.

Here is the complaint file…

1. TRID Has a Redisclosure Addiction

Lenders, title companies and escrow agents all complained about the number of redisclosures generated by ordinary transaction changes.

The joint mortgage-trade filing calls the tolerance system one of the most operationally burdensome parts of TRID and argues that it can punish immaterial variances instead of focusing on meaningful consumer cost information.

ALTA says consumers can receive multiple Loan Estimates and Closing Disclosures and arrive at closing unable to tell which one is actually accurate.

This is where the regulation starts eating its own purpose.

If the goal is clarity, giving the borrower Version 1, Version 2, Version 3, Version 4 and FINAL_v7_ACTUALFINAL.pdf may not be the triumph we think it is.

Stop Treating Every Government or Third-Party Fee Change Like Somebody Screwed Up

Transfer taxes change when the purchase price changes.

Recording fees are generally calculated based on number of pages in a document not delivered to title until the settlement day.

Notary costs are based on the number of documents being notarized, in a loan package not delivered to title until the day of closing.

Final taxes come from individual tax collectors with their own set of rules about how and when to disclose that information.

Payoff figures are finetuned through a daily interest calculation based on the day the lender received the payoff funds - change the settlement date, you change the payoff amount.

The parties renegotiate - everything.

Yet tolerance rules and “changed circumstance” determinations can treat those changes as though somebody failed to price the loan correctly. That’s unfair to the lender and burdensome on lenders and settlement professionals.

AEA specifically asks CFPB to reconsider the treatment of transfer taxes, recording fees and notary fees because they are externally determined, government regulated, charges the creditor and settlement agent do not control.

AEA also says creditors still interpret changed-circumstance rules differently, particularly when buyers and sellers renegotiate who pays a closing cost.

California Escrow Association asks CFPB to explicitly address HOA demands, payoff revisions, corrected tax bills, continuing buyer-seller negotiations and other common settlement events.

That does not mean consumers should eat unexplained surprises.

It means the compliance system should be able to tell the difference between:
the lender changed the price
the lender was lazy about communicating with title and providing final closing docs
and
the buyer and seller renegotiated

The tolerance fight is really about control.

If the creditor controls the charge or controls the information necessary to calculate the charge, holding the creditor accountable for the estimate makes sense.

If the creditor does not control the charge, the argument gets harder.

The comments repeatedly ask CFPB to draw that line more intelligently because the current system can encourage conservative estimates, cures and redisclosures instead of producing better information.

Sometimes TRID is protecting the consumer from a bad estimate.
Sometimes it is punishing somebody for failing to predict the future.

Those are different problems.

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2. The Fake Three-Day Closing Disclosure

All of that redisclosure, tolerance, and change circumstances stuff leads us to Title and Escrow professionals telling CFPB that TRID’s three-day Closing Disclosure rule is not the real source of closing chaos. Their bigger complaint: the “final” CD can go out while balancing, underwriting and document preparation are still moving.

California’s Escrow Institute says its members are regularly asked to produce final numbers within 24 to 48 hours of closing on files that have been open for weeks. It argues that many corrected CDs are not caused by some dramatic late-breaking event. They happen because meaningful lender-settlement reconciliation starts too late.

Another title-company commenter described what the process has effectively created:

an “estimated final” Closing Disclosure.

Which may be the most perfectly absurd description of modern mortgage closing ever committed to a federal docket.

Estimated.
Final.
Pick one.

So the borrower gets three days with a disclosure that claims it’s final, but isn’t while settlement gets a mere hours with the version everybody is actually expected to sign and fund from.

The problem is not the consumer review period itself. It is pretending that “disclosed three days ago” and “financially finalized three days ago” are the same thing.

They are not.

Even the Lenders Admit the “Final” CD Isn’t Always Final

This is where the comments get really useful.

ICBA told CFPB that the current framework encourages lenders to issue Closing Disclosures before final settlement figures are available simply to satisfy the mandatory waiting period.

Community banks said lenders frequently provide CDs before all costs have been finalized because the timing rule requires the document to go out.

That works brilliantly if your compliance goal is:

CD DELIVERED ON TIME.

It works considerably less brilliantly if your consumer-protection goal is:

THE CONSUMER REVIEWED THE FINAL TRANSACTION FOR THREE DAYS.

Those are different achievements.

A closing attorney in the docket suggested title should receive at least one full business day to review the loan documents. I’d say it should be 6. The full loan package should arrive 6 days before settlement, allow title 3 days to review, balance the CD with the lender, and produce an actual, final CD in time to give the borrower 3 days to review it.

3. The Federal Government Made a Form So Clear Florida Had to Invent Another Form to Explain It

TRID was supposed to make mortgage costs easier to understand. Sometimes complying with it requires showing consumers numbers that aren’t the prices they actually pay.

Nothing explains TRID’s title-premium problem better than Florida.

Florida’s title association walked CFPB through the math in its public comment.
Take a $300,000 purchase with a $240,000 mortgage.
Under Florida’s filed title rates, the owner’s policy premium is $1,575.
The simultaneous-issue lender’s policy is $25.
Pretty straightforward.
Then TRID arrives.

The federally required Closing Disclosure shows:
Lender’s title policy: $1,275.
Owner’s title policy: $325.
Total: $1,600.

The total is correct.
Almost everything underneath it is nonsense.

The federal formula forces the lender’s policy to appear at its full standalone premium, then backs the simultaneous-issue discount into the owner’s-policy line. The consumer therefore sees $1,275 beside a policy that actually costs $25 under Florida’s filed rates.

And because Florida apparently believed consumers deserved to know what they were actually paying, the state created another mandatory form explaining why the federal form and the real title premiums do not match.

Yes. We created a disclosure to explain the disclosure.
A+ work, everyone.

Florida’s not alone in this dilemma. Texas has its own supplemental disclosure addressing the same basic problem.

ALTA made fixing this its first and most important recommendation to CFPB.

Hard to argue with that one.

A consumer disclosure should probably not require a second disclosure explaining why the first disclosure is wrong.

4. Fix the Fake Fees Already

Title is not alone.

One of the strangest patterns in the docket is how many industries are telling CFPB:

That fee line looks much simpler than the thing it is supposedly explaining.

Approximately Every Appraiser in America Found the Comment Button

The appraisal contingent is one of the strangest and most organized subplots in this docket. Their campaign centers on the combined Appraisal Fee.

The Appraisal Regulation Compliance Council asks CFPB to require separate disclosure of:

Appraiser professional fee

and

Appraisal management company fee.

Its argument is that a consumer can see one appraisal charge without knowing how much was actually paid to the licensed appraiser and how much was retained for appraisal-management services.

Equifax Showed Up to Ask What a “Credit Report Fee” Actually Is

This one I did not have on my bingo card.

Equifax spends much of its filing defending the continued value of tri-merge credit reporting and discussing credit-data costs.

Commercial interest noted.

But then it gets to an unexpectedly good disclosure question.

Equifax says mortgage lenders can calculate credit-report charges using different methodologies, including:

• the actual products used for that borrower;

• an averaged methodology; or

• a closed-loan/funded-loan methodology where the consumers who successfully close may absorb costs associated with applications that did not.

Equifax wants CFPB to require greater clarity about which methodology produced the charge.

And again we arrive at the same uncomfortable question:

If the Closing Disclosure says:

Credit Report Fee: $X

but $X is not necessarily the actual cost of that consumer’s credit report—

what exactly is the line telling them?

Three very different industries have arrived at essentially the same complaint:

A short label and a precise dollar amount do not automatically create transparency.

Sometimes simplification just hides where the money went.

Both ALTA and American Escrow Association (AEA) also want another old irritant addressed: the mandatory “(Optional)” label on owner’s title insurance, which they argue can be misleading where the purchase contract effectively requires the policy even though the lender does not. Not to mention, most people equate “optional” with “unnecessary” which could be leading homeowners to make poor risk management decisions based on a single word, and inaccurate number.

Ten years into TRID, perhaps the form could stop requiring title agents to explain why the official disclosure does not mean what it appears to mean.

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5. Should We Keep the 3 Day Right of Recission if we have a 3-Day Disclosure?

For certain transactions involving a consumer’s principal dwelling—most notably many refinances—federal law gives the borrower a period after consummation in which they can cancel the transaction.

On July 20th in “TRID Is Back on the Operating Table—and Someone Brought a Chainsaw: What Title Agents Need to Know“ I said, “I’d love to see some statistical data from the lenders on how often buyers are rescinding both pre and post TRID, but I was unable to find any.”

Ask and ye shall receive, sometimes.

United Wholesale Mortgage brought some valuable numbers to the CFPB.

UWM’s conclusion is straightforward. Consumers already receive a Closing Disclosure three business days before consummation. They have time to review the loan before they sign it. Very few borrowers subsequently cancel. UWM argues that TRID has made that protection largely redundant.

But low use does not necessarily mean low value, and the National Consumer Law Center and other consumer groups strongly disagree.

It will be interesting to see where the CFPB lands.

6. The Seller Closing Disclosure Has Been Nominated for Retirement

Settlement already has to account for the seller’s proceeds, charges, credits, payoffs and disbursements. And title companies routinely prepare settlement statements that do exactly that.

ALTA told CFPB that settlement companies continue to use the ALTA Settlement Statement because the Closing Disclosure does not fully explain the economics of the actual transaction. Yet again, we’ve had to make a form to explain the form. Why?

So both ALTA and the American Escrow Association ask an obvious question:

Why are we also preparing a separate seller Closing Disclosure?

Both the American Land Title Association and settlement-industry commenters asked CFPB to reconsider the requirement for a separate seller Closing Disclosure. Their proposed answer is not particularly radical:

Let the settlement statement we are already preparing do the job.

This is probably one of the easiest, least expensive, least controversial, yet truly valuable changes that could be made.

7. “Materiality” Sounds Great Until Somebody Has to Fund

CFPB commenters agree trivial mortgage changes should not derail closings. The fight is over whether replacing bright-line TRID rules with judgment calls would fix the problem—or create a new one.

A lot of lender-side commenters like materiality.
And why wouldn’t they?

If a change does not meaningfully affect the borrower, maybe it should not trigger another compliance event. Then escrow asks the question everybody eventually has to answer:
What exactly is material?

California Escrow Association points out that the settlement agent holding trust funds may not have access to the lender’s underwriting file or compliance analysis. It still has to know whether the waiting period has been satisfied and whether the money can legally move.

Consumer advocates also object to vague materiality standards, warning that they can replace clear protections with interpretation and litigation.

Materiality could absolutely fix stupid delays. So could better bright-line rules.

8. The Law Is Still Catching Up With the Closing Technology

Electronic signatures are not new.
RON is not new.
eNotes are not new.
Digital closings are not new.

What remains remarkably durable is inconsistency.

American Escrow Association wants clearer federal guidance on electronic delivery, consent, signatures and proof of receipt because lender practices still vary. ALTA raises the same problem.

Snapdocs goes considerably farther. It asks CFPB to consider requiring covered lenders to offer a digital closing option when the transaction and documents are legally and operationally eligible, while preserving the borrower’s ability to choose paper or hybrid execution.

That is not just:
Please clarify eSign.

That is:
Maybe digital closing should become something the consumer can expect to be offered.

For lenders and title, that would mean another round of figuring out whether the state, county, investor, warehouse, custodian, insurer, guarantor, eNote system, notary law and actual document package have all decided to join us in the twenty-first century. But honestly, we’re already doing that now. Maybe the CFPB could give them a nudge?

The technology problem is increasingly not whether the tools exist.

It is whether everybody in the transaction agrees they exist at the same time.

9. The Emergency Waiver Is Almost Too Scary to Use

There is a strange little emergency exit built into TRID.

If a borrower has a bona fide personal financial emergency, certain waiting periods can be waived. Sounds useful. Then you look at the regulatory example.

The famous example is essentially:

Your house is about to be sold at foreclosure unless the loan funds arrive during the waiting period.

That is certainly an emergency. It is also a spectacularly narrow example to leave sitting there as the industry’s main guide to what qualifies.

Meanwhile, actual homeowners experience other situations that also have a rather urgent quality:

• The roof is leaking.

• The air conditioner dies during a heat wave.

• A purchase contract is about to expire.

• A rate lock is expiring.

• A time-sensitive refinance needs to fund.

And everybody involved starts asking the same question:
Does this count?

That is exactly the kind of question a regulatory waiver is supposed to answer.

Instead, the comments suggest the current framework has created a lovely compromise in which the waiver technically exists and many people are too scared to use it.

The mortgage trades want CFPB to recognize things like expiring rate locks, loss of earnest money, occupancy deadlines and contractual penalties.

PACE gives this issue an unusually intuitive fact pattern.

BRIDGE, which represents third-party administrators of state-authorized PACE financing programs, spends a surprising amount of its CFPB comment on this. BRIDGE asks CFPB to imagine a homeowner who needs:

• a new air-conditioning system during a summer heat wave;

• major roof repairs during rainy season;

• or another urgent improvement affecting health, safety or habitability.

Its argument is that stacking the various TRID timing requirements with rescission can produce a delay of at least thirteen business days in the scenarios it describes.

Consumer advocates, meanwhile, have a very reasonable fear: Make the waiver too easy and it becomes another preprinted document in the signing package. NCLC specifically warns that preprinted or model forms could be slipped into electronic or paper closing packages and become routine rather than exceptional. It argues the current requirement—that the consumer provide a written statement describing the emergency—helps ensure the waiver remains consumer-driven instead of becoming another document an originator can normalize.

That concern deserves more than an eye roll.

ALTA wants CFPB to broaden the examples and supports the idea of a model form. California’s independent escrow companies explain why this is not just another lender-compliance question. Escrow holders are frequently pulled into waiver situations because somebody has to know whether the transaction may legally proceed and whether funds may be disbursed. Any change needs to include clear direction on who is responsible for making the determination, preferably the lender, and clear instruction that title and escrow can rely on that determination to fund. Otherwise title will inherit another federal judgment call somebody else asked for.

Three years later:
“Everybody signs that.”

CFPB should probably find that waiver middle ground because not every deadline is an emergency just because everybody is upset.

10. TRID Was Built for a Standard Mortgage. Unfortunately, Housing Finance Has Met Real Estate.

CFPB’s TRID comments expose a structural problem: manufactured housing, construction-to-permanent loans, reverse mortgages, PACE and digital closings do not fit one standard mortgage disclosure system. How much specialization can TRID absorb before “integrated” stops meaning integrated?

Reverse mortgages walk in backwards. Construction loans do not have all their costs neatly known at application. PACE says we aren’t even a mortgage, yet here we are. It can involve property-improvement financing where urgency and transaction structure look nothing like a conventional purchase loan. Manufactured housing can involve a house seller, land seller, site work, affixation, titling issues involving the department of motor vehicles and assorted other ways to make a standard Closing Disclosure question its career choices.

Commenter after commenter asks CFPB for some version of tailored treatment.

And many of them have a point.

The danger is what happens next because diversity is a feature and compliance hates features.

Every specialized rule means new forms, new programming, new training, new lender overlays and another decision tree for settlement.

ALTA supports tailored approaches in areas such as construction and reverse mortgages but also reminds CFPB that the title industry spent more than $300 million implementing TRID in 2015.

That is worth remembering before anybody enthusiastically invents:
TRID Classic.
TRID Construction.
TRID Reverse.
TRID Manufactured.
TRID Small Lender.
TRID Digital Deluxe.
TRID PACE Emergency Roof Edition.

Because the lender may only need to implement the rules that apply to its product.

The title agency gets everybody.

Everybody Hates TRID Until You Ask What They’d Replace It With

There is something almost beautiful about 339 public comments on TRID.

Everybody arrives furious.

Lenders are tired of paying cures on fees they don’t control. Credit unions are drowning in technical compliance. Escrow companies want numbers before the day of closing. Consumer advocates think “flexibility” is a lovely word for “future loophole.” Title professionals would simply like the federal disclosure to stop requiring them to explain why the federal disclosure is wrong.

Then CFPB asks the dangerous question:

Fine. What should we do instead?

And suddenly the consensus gets wobbly.

The public-comment fight is much more interesting than “industry wants deregulation.” The real fight is over how do we support a diverse housing marketing with diverse financial solutions while limiting regulatory uncertainty and assumed financial risk?

None of these financial solutions becomes easier to understand because we force them to dress alike. The consensus is that TRID’s currently too rigid.

Title’s job in that debate is exactly what it has always been: look past the policy slogan and ask what happens when this rule hits an actual transaction, with actual money, actual documents and a consumer sitting across the table expecting somebody to know what the hell is going on.

There are absolutely parts of TRID that deserve surgery.

But before CFPB starts handing out “flexibility,” somebody needs to ask where the risk goes when the rules stop giving a definite answer.

Because eventually the file lands somewhere.

Usually on our desk.

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Cheryl
Founder, Wicked Title Forum
From Chaos to Clarity—in Plain English
Contact Me (or hit reply)

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The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

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The weirdest thing in the TRID docket is not how much everyone disagrees.

It is who keeps agreeing with whom.

Title and consumer advocates both get nervous when lenders start talking about replacing bright-line rules with “materiality.”

Appraisers and title professionals are making eerily similar arguments that TRID’s clean-looking fee lines can actually hide the real economics of the transaction.

Equifax wandered into a mortgage-disclosure fight to ask whether the “Credit Report Fee” on the Closing Disclosure is even the cost of that borrower’s credit report.

Snapdocs took a question about electronic signatures and proposed something much bigger: when a transaction is eligible, perhaps lenders should actually have to offer a digital closing option.

PACE administrators showed up with leaking roofs and dead air conditioners to argue that the federal government’s favorite example of an “emergency” is absurdly narrow.

And the reverse-mortgage industry and consumer advocates—who do not spend a great deal of time holding hands—both basically told CFPB:

That is what makes these comments worth reading as a group.

This is not one fight over whether TRID should be stricter or looser.

It is a pile of smaller fights over what the disclosure is supposed to accomplish, who absorbs the cost when it fails, and which part of the transaction CFPB has been looking at from the wrong end.

Once you sort the commenters by what they actually want, the coalitions get very strange very quickly.

And title is sitting in the middle of more of them than you might expect.

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The Big Mortgage Trades: Keep TRID, Loosen the Machinery

The broad mortgage coalition is considerably less revolutionary than some of the rhetoric surrounding TRID reform might suggest.

On August 7, the American Bankers Association, American Financial Services Association, America’s Credit Unions, Consumer Bankers Association, Housing Policy Council, Manufactured Housing Institute and Mortgage Bankers Association submitted a joint letter built around just three consensus recommendations:

1. rework TRID tolerances;

2. change the six-item definition of an application so lenders can obtain additional information before the Loan Estimate clock starts; and

3. make the bona fide personal financial emergency waiver more usable.

That is worth noticing.

Their joint position was not:
Burn the Loan Estimate.
Kill the Closing Disclosure.
Consumers have had it too good for too long.

It was much closer to:

TRID’s compliance machinery has become excessively technical, and we want more room to operate around it.

The tolerance complaint is especially broad. The trades argue that the current structure punishes immaterial differences instead of asking whether the consumer actually received meaningful cost information.

Individual lender filings then push farther in different directions—materiality standards, fewer redisclosures, broader third-party tolerances, shorter waiting periods, rescission flexibility, digital modernization and special treatment for particular products.

So yes, the lender-side center of gravity is roughly:

Three days bad. Redisclosures bad. Fewer technical rules good. Please make mortgage go faster.

Rude?
A little.

Wrong?
Not particularly.

But it is still more accurate to say lenders largely want to keep the disclosure architecture and reduce the procedural consequences surrounding it than to say the mortgage industry wants TRID dismantled.

Title and Escrow: Please Make the Disclosure Match the Transaction

This is where the title comments become much more interesting than generic “TRID is burdensome” coverage.

ALTA’s first and explicitly most important recommendation is fixing the simultaneous-issue title premium formula.

Its complaint is beautifully simple:

TRID can require title insurance to be displayed in amounts that are not the actual policy-level premiums being charged under state-filed rates.

Florida demonstrates how absurd that can become: an actual $25 simultaneous-issue lender-policy premium can appear as $1,275 on the federal Closing Disclosure, while the owner’s premium moves in the opposite direction. The combined total remains correct, but the individual numbers no longer tell the consumer what each policy actually costs. Florida consequently requires another disclosure to explain the federal disclosure.

Title and escrow also want relief around recording fees, transfer taxes, notary charges and other costs controlled by governments or third parties rather than creditors.

But then their agenda begins separating from the lenders’.

California’s Escrow Institute says many last-minute revisions are caused not simply by TRID requirements but by late lender-settlement coordination. Its members report being asked for final figures within 24 to 48 hours of closing on escrows that have been open for weeks. It wants earlier standardized data exchange between creditor and settlement.

That is an entirely different diagnosis.

Both can be right.
But only one of those solutions changes the upstream workflow.

Title and escrow also want clearer changed-circumstance rules, elimination or replacement of the separate seller CD, more consistent electronic-delivery guidance and usable emergency-waiver rules.

And on materiality, settlement becomes surprisingly conservative. (Not politically conservative. Operationally conservative.)

An escrow company holding other people’s money wants a rule that says:

You may disburse now.

It does not particularly want:

The lender reviewed the totality of the circumstances and considers the change immaterial. Good luck.

California Escrow Association warns that settlement may not even have the lender’s compliance information necessary to make that judgment independently.

So title’s position is not:
Less regulation.

It is closer to:

Give us accurate numbers, predictable rules and enough information to actually close the transaction.

That is a much stronger argument.

Consumer Advocates: The Annoying Friction Is Sometimes the Protection

The National Consumer Law Center coalition is the clearest counterweight to the deregulatory side of the docket. It strongly defends the existing pre-consummation review period and post-consummation rescission rights. It opposes making emergency waivers easier to normalize. And it is deeply skeptical of replacing bright-line requirements with a broad materiality standard.

Their basic argument is uncomfortable but important:

Some of the friction industry participants experience as delay is deliberately there to prevent consumers from being rushed.

A borrower who reaches the end of a stressful purchase transaction is highly motivated to sign whatever keeps the moving truck moving.

That is precisely when a mandatory period can have value.

The NCLC coalition therefore hears:

Let the consumer waive the waiting period.

and thinks:

Eventually somebody is going to put the waiver in DocuSign between the privacy notice and the flood form.

That is why it specifically objects to making preprinted/model emergency waivers routine.

Unsurprising was how often consumer advocates and settlement professionals land near one another. Not because they share the same philosophy. Consumer groups want bright lines because they protect borrowers. Escrow wants bright lines because somebody holding $487,000 in trust would really enjoy knowing whether the transaction can legally fund. Different roads. Same stop.

Then Approximately Every Appraiser in America Found the Comment Button

The appraisal contingent is one of the strangest and most organized subplots in this docket. Their campaign centers on the combined Appraisal Fee.

The Appraisal Regulation Compliance Council asks CFPB to require separate disclosure of:
Appraiser professional fee
and
Appraisal management company fee.

Its argument is that a consumer can see one appraisal charge without knowing how much was actually paid to the licensed appraiser and how much was retained for appraisal-management services.

That creates a fascinating parallel with title.

Title says:

The federal title lines do not show the actual policy-level economics.

Appraisers say:

The federal appraisal line does not show the actual service-level economics.

Both are challenging one of TRID’s foundational design instincts:

Fewer lines = simpler disclosure.

Sometimes fewer lines mean the consumer sees less.

ARCC goes much farther, alleging substantial AMC markups, workforce effects and anticompetitive practices, and it relies partly on its own collected exhibits and calculations. Several related lawsuits it cites remain allegations rather than adjudicated facts.

Those broader claims need to stay in the claimed/alleged bucket.

But the disclosure-design question stands on its own:

If the borrower pays for two distinct services, should the form show one price or two?

That is absolutely a TRID question.

Equifax Showed Up to Ask What a “Credit Report Fee” Actually Is

This one I did not have on my bingo card.

Equifax spends much of its filing defending the continued value of tri-merge credit reporting and discussing credit-data costs.

Commercial interest noted.

But then it gets to an unexpectedly good disclosure question.

Equifax says mortgage lenders can calculate credit-report charges using different methodologies, including:

• the actual products used for that borrower;

• an averaged methodology; or

• a closed-loan/funded-loan methodology where the consumers who successfully close may absorb costs associated with applications that did not.

Equifax wants CFPB to require greater clarity about which methodology produced the charge.

And again we arrive at the same uncomfortable question:

If the Closing Disclosure says:

Credit Report Fee: $X

but $X is not necessarily the actual cost of that consumer’s credit report—what exactly is the line telling them?

TRID keeps running into this problem.
Title premium.
Appraisal fee.
Credit report fee.

The form presents a beautifully specific dollar amount. The economic meaning underneath it may be considerably less specific.

Snapdocs Did Not Come Merely to Request Better E-Sign Guidance

Tech vendors absolutely got involved.

And Snapdocs brought one of the most aggressive proposals in the docket.

CFPB asked whether it should provide additional guidance around electronic forms and signatures.

Snapdocs said yes.

Then essentially added:

Also, once a transaction is legally and operationally eligible, maybe lenders should have to offer a digital-closing option.

Not require consumers to use it.

Require covered lenders to make the option available when the documents and transaction qualify, while preserving paper and hybrid choice.

That is a major escalation from:
Please clarify electronic delivery.

It turns eClosing from something the law permits into something that could potentially become a consumer availability right.

And title would be standing directly in the implementation path.

Because digital eligibility can depend on:
state law;
notarization;
county recording;
investor requirements;
insurer and guarantor requirements;
warehouse and custodian requirements;
eNote eligibility;
and title requirements.

Snapdocs acknowledges all of that.

It also has an obvious commercial interest in more digital closings.

Both things can be true.

The proposal deserves attention precisely because it is not generic vendor marketing. It is a genuine regulatory ask that could change closing workflow.

PACE Brought the Best Argument for Why “Consumer Protection” Can Become Consumer Friction

BRIDGE represents companies administering state-authorized PACE programs.

It also disagrees with CFPB’s underlying treatment of residential PACE as consumer credit subject to TILA.

So again: perspective noted.

But BRIDGE provided perhaps the most intuitive argument in the docket for making emergency waivers more usable.

A homeowner needs a roof.
Or the air conditioner dies during a heat wave.

BRIDGE calculates that the overlapping timing requirements applicable to the transactions it describes can total at least 13 business days from application through funding. It argues that consumers needing urgent repairs may instead seek faster and potentially more expensive credit.

Then the consumer coalition points out the opposite risk:

Make waivers too easy, and the consumer-protection period becomes routine opt-out paperwork.

There is your policy problem in one sentence:

Sometimes delay protects the consumer. Sometimes delay prevents the consumer from solving the emergency.

Welcome to regulation. Sorry about the paperwork.

Reverse-Mortgage Commenters Mostly Agreed the Current Disclosure Is Bad

Reverse mortgages produce one of the least combative parts of the docket. The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association supports a tailored reverse-mortgage disclosure. Consumer advocates also support a carefully designed reverse-specific disclosure. The two groups differ in emphasis and desired safeguards, but the core diagnosis is remarkably similar:

Stop making consumers understand a reverse mortgage through disclosures built around a very different kind of loan.

NRMLA points to Federal Reserve testing showing some consumers misunderstood the TALC table so badly that declining percentages could be interpreted as a declining interest rate.

Its proposed alternative is much more visual and dollar-based: show the balance growing, the home value under assumptions and the equity relationship over time.

The consumer coalition also wants clearer loan-growth information, borrower-relevant scenarios, plain language, testing and counseling safeguards.

That is what healthy regulatory disagreement looks like.

Not:
Should this be understandable?

But:
What information actually produces understanding?

Manufactured Housing Came to Explain That “One Property + One Seller” Is Not Always a Thing

Manufactured housing also has an obvious institutional interest in specialized treatment. But its examples are extremely concrete.

A manufactured-home transaction can involve:
one seller for the home;
another for the land;
multiple deposits;
separate property components;
affixation or de-titling;
special recording charges;
and evolving construction or site-improvement costs.

The standard mortgage disclosure architecture is not terribly excited about any of this.

MHI’s filing essentially asks CFPB to acknowledge that a housing product serving an affordability role may have a transaction structure that simply does not fit the conceptual mortgage around which TRID was designed.

Construction lending makes the same argument from another direction.
Reverse mortgages make it backwards.
PACE comes in sideways.

Eventually CFPB has to decide how many special regimes a supposedly integrated disclosure system can contain before “integrated” becomes aspirational.

And the Small-Lender Fight Is Its Own Fight

Another fault line cuts across the main coalitions. Should smaller banks and credit unions have different TRID requirements?

Smaller depositories argue that fixed compliance costs hit them disproportionately because they cannot spread technology, legal, training and systems expenses across enormous loan volumes.

That is a real economic argument that falls apart when you take the next step. Because the next entity in line in the transaction is the title agency, and the title industry is disproportionately heavy on the side of small and micro businesses than giants. And a title company does not close only for one category of lender.

If CFPB creates:
Large Lender TRID
and
Small Bank TRID
and
Credit Union TRID
and perhaps different procedural options inside each—

the lender may receive relief while the settlement company gains three workflows.

That is why ALTA expressly cautions CFPB against creating separate lender-category requirements unless the consumer benefit clearly exceeds the additional settlement complexity.

This is one of the central recurring themes in the title comments:

A cost does not disappear merely because you moved it to somebody else.

The Coalitions Are Not Where You Expect Them

Once you lay the comments next to each other, the actual map looks something like this.

On reducing unnecessary redisclosures: lenders, title and escrow are broadly aligned.

On third-party fee tolerances: again, substantial lender/title/escrow overlap.

On keeping the three-day initial review period: title and escrow are more protective of it than the broad deregulatory narrative suggests, while some lenders want more flexibility and consumer groups strongly defend it.

On materiality: many lenders like the concept; consumer advocates dislike it; escrow worries about inheriting the uncertainty.

On emergency waivers: lenders, title, escrow and PACE want clearer usable pathways; consumer advocates fear normalization.

On form redesign: title wants very targeted fixes; appraisers want unbundling; Equifax wants more explanation; specialty products want tailored forms; ALTA simultaneously warns everybody that form changes cost a fortune.

On digital closing: nearly everyone can support clarification. Snapdocs goes significantly farther by proposing required lender-level availability where eligible.

On whether TRID should explain actual economic reality: this is where the strangest coalition appears.

Title professionals.
Appraisers.
Credit-data companies.
Reverse-mortgage commenters.
Manufactured housing.
Different industries.
Different financial interests.

Same basic complaint:

The standardized disclosure sometimes simplifies the transaction until it stops accurately explaining the transaction.

That may be the most important theme in the entire docket.

After more than a decade, most of the serious commenters are not debating whether mortgage consumers should receive standardized information. They are arguing about what happens when the standardized framework meets a transaction that is messier than the framework expected. Lenders experience that as compliance cost. Consumers experience it as protection against surprise and pressure. Title experiences it as the gap between the federal document and the closing sitting on the desk. Escrow experiences it as the need to know exactly when money can move. Appraisers experience it as a fee line that hides the economics underneath it. Credit-data companies see another fee line that may mean several different things. Tech vendors see rules that permit digital closing without consistently producing digital availability. Specialty finance sees conventional mortgage rules wrapped around unconventional products.

Nobody is completely neutral here. The biggest insights come when you look for the places where people with completely different incentives keep pointing at the same broken part.

Those are the places CFPB should probably inspect first.

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Founder, Wicked Title Forum
From Chaos to Clarity—in Plain English
Contact Me (or hit reply)

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**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

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🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

Property Data Brokers Apparently Copy Each Other’s Homework

Two Property Databases Can Agree—and Still Both Be Wrong — Researchers auditing two major brokered property-record datasets found that for 1–2% of matched Cook County sales, reported sale prices differed from government records by more than 5%, while missing data and differences in how deed and property characteristics were reported produced coverage errors affecting 12–15% of transactions. More interesting: the errors were highly correlated—when brokers got a transaction wrong, they often got it wrong the same way. For title companies increasingly feeding aggregated property data into automation, search tools and AI, agreement between multiple commercial data sources may not be the independent verification it appears to be. Read the research

• This may be a trend, because in other news… In a New Test, AI Mortgage Assistants Got Nearly 1 in 4 Answers Wrong

The Fake Title Company May Be the Cartel

New federal charges describe an alleged cartel-controlled timeshare fraud operation that used call centers, stolen owner information, sham contracts, fictitious websites and impersonators to extract repeated advance fees from American victims. One 83-year-old reportedly encountered fake real-estate websites and title companies before being targeted again by impostor attorneys and government officials; federal authorities say the wider operation defrauded more than 6,000 Americans of approximately $400 million. It is a reminder that title-company impersonation is no longer confined to spoofed wiring instructions: criminals are building entire fake transaction ecosystems around the credibility of our industry.

TikTok Is Apparently a Property Manager Now

A Connecticut Realtor discovered that scammers had lifted every photo from her $599,000 for-sale listing and reposted the house on TikTok as a $1,400-a-month rental—including utilities. The fake listing actually sent prospective tenants to the property, and at least one of the fraudulent TikTok posts was reportedly still live after the scam was reported. For title people, the weird part isn’t rental fraud itself; it’s how easily the legitimate digital footprint surrounding a real property can now be cloned and repurposed into an entirely different fake transaction.

The Federal Government Is Having a Real-Estate Yard Sale

Treasury had IRS-CI seized homes hitting online auction this week, including properties in Kansas and Mississippi with $25,000 cashier’s-check deposits required just to bid.

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

Ubitquity Wants Title Policies Talking Back

Ubitquity has launched NFTVault AI v3.0.1 Alpha, a blockchain-based title-policy storage platform that can now pull records from Qualia, ResWare and SoftPro through its new RWA-Scraper tool without requiring a traditional API integration. The update also adds encrypted decentralized document storage and an AI interface that lets users ask questions about stored title policies in natural language. It is still an alpha product—and very much at the blockchain end of the title-tech spectrum—but the attempt to turn static policy archives into searchable, interactive records is unusual enough to watch.

Titl Wants to Turn the Title Search Into a Five-Minute Product

Titl is building AI-powered title search and production tools that search land records, extract property data and produce title reports and abstracts, with blockchain used to store and protect land-record data. Its current products include automated title reports, title monitoring, abstract generation and pre-listing title review, and the company is also working directly with municipalities to digitize paper public records. The pitch is ambitious—title data in minutes instead of days—but the more interesting part may be how directly Titl is attacking the search-and-production layer rather than simply adding AI around the edges of an existing title workflow.

Payload Wants the Closing Money to Stop Traveling by Anxiety

Payload is a payments platform built for real estate businesses, including title companies, covering earnest money, closing disbursements, commissions, fees, vendor payments and reconciliation. It supports payment links, ACH, real-time payments and FedNow, along with automated reconciliation and integrations with real-estate software. In other words, another attempt to replace some portion of the industry’s longstanding email + wire instructions + collective anxiety payment strategy with structured, trackable workflows.

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Turn 1031 Exchanges Into a Business Line, Not Just a Weird File

TLTA has an on-demand course called Work Smarter with 1031s: Turn Every Exchange into an Opportunity, aimed specifically at helping title professionals understand exchanges well enough to identify opportunities, coordinate the transaction correctly, and make 1031 work part of the agency’s service offering. It’s older than your 30-day preference, so I would not present it as new—but as an evergreen growth resource, it fills a useful gap in this section: growing revenue by becoming better at a transaction type you may already be seeing. TLTA Online Learning Center

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💼 Job Postings

• National Senior Title Examiner — Allegiant National Title
  Remote — U.S. | $80,000–$100,000
  Examines residential and commercial titles nationwide, identifying defects, exceptions and underwriting issues on complex files.

• Title Exam Reviewer — Innovative Title Solutions LLC
  Atlanta, GA — Remote | $55,000
  Performs advanced quality-control reviews of residential and commercial title examinations for accuracy, completeness and compliance with Georgia title standards.

• Escrow Closer — Primo Title Group LLC
  Orlando, FL — Remote/Hybrid/In Office | $60,000–$230,000
  Manages real estate closings from document preparation and title review through coordination of parties, funding and final settlement.

• Title Curative Specialist — First Integrity Title Company
  Irvine, CA — Remote | $21–$28/hour
  Works through title exceptions and curative issues including vesting, liens, releases, payoffs and other matters necessary to clear title.

• Closing Specialist (National) — First Title & Escrow
  Remote
  Guides borrowers and clients through settlement while reviewing title commitments and coordinating clearances, endorsements, lenders, processors, examiners and signing agents.

• Commercial Title Officer — First American
  New York, NY — Remote | $30.91–$41.20/hour
  Performs commercial title searches, analyzes public-record findings and helps resolve issues necessary to complete commercial title transactions.

• Title Processor — ClearEdge Title
  Clearwater, FL
  Reviews title commitments and supporting documents, works through title defects and coordinates with examiners, underwriters and closers to move files toward settlement.

• Commercial Escrow Officer — Fidelity National Financial
  Franklin, TN
  Handles commercial real estate escrow closings, including transaction documents, funds, underwriting requirements and coordination with customers and transaction parties.

• Escrow Operations Assistant — Stewart Title
  Greater Houston, TX
  Supports escrow officers and closing operations with file administration, customer service, document handling and other tasks needed to move transactions through closing.

• Escrow Officer (Texas) — Westcor Land Title Insurance Company
  Dallas, TX
  Reviews commitments, T-64 affidavits, deposits, disbursements and policies; initiates wires and checks; and helps maintain compliance with Texas title and escrow requirements.

💼 Place Your Job Posting Ad Here

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Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

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Title companies have modernized almost everything.

Orders arrive electronically. Documents move through digital workflows. Signatures happen remotely. Closers can manage transactions across counties, states, and time zones.

Then funding approval hits and someone starts printing checks.

Welcome to the last mile.

It is the part of the closing process where modern technology frequently gives way to paper, postage, bank portals, manual entry, overnight packages, reissues, and the occasional ritual of begging someone to cash the large check currently living in their glove compartment.

During a recent Wicked Title Forum panel, Scott Dizon of Deluxe Payment Exchange joined Alex Grundhoffer of Near North Title Group, Kristine Mediate of FIT Agency, Bryan Colbert of American Escrow Reconciliation, and Steve Hargraves of ShortTrack to talk about why money movement still creates so much friction—and why fixing it no longer requires ripping apart the systems title companies already trust.

The Hidden Bottleneck No One Owns

Most title teams treat disbursement as the finish line.

Funding is approved. Money goes out. File closed.

Except the file is not necessarily done.

“The finish line isn’t only just moving the money,” Colbert said. “It’s proving that the money landed.”

Until every payment has cleared, every outstanding item has been addressed, and the escrow account can be documented and defended, the agency is still carrying unfinished business.

That unfinished business may include:

• checks waiting to clear

• reissues and stop payments

• recording reimbursements

• stale outstanding items

• bank cutoff delays

• wire verification

• reconciliation exceptions

• escheatment exposure

The buyer may have the keys. The real estate agent may already be posting the closing photo. Meanwhile, the escrow team is still cleaning up the money trail.

That is the last mile problem.

The Quiet Cost of “We’ve Always Done It This Way”

Paper checks look inexpensive because the cost arrives in tiny pieces.

A little check stock. A little ink. An envelope. A stamp. Maybe an overnight fee because apparently we now routinely pay more than $20 to move a piece of paper across the country.

The bigger expense is labor.

Kristine Mediate looked around her agency and saw experienced employees printing, signing, stuffing, and mailing checks.

That is the real cost.

Your best people are not expensive because they know how to operate a printer. They are expensive because they know how to catch problems before those problems become claims, delayed closings, furious clients, or lost referral partners.

Steve Hargraves called the friction between disconnected systems the “swivel chair tax.”

Every time an employee leaves the title production system, opens another portal, rekeys data, compares screens, and carries information back again, the agency pays in time, attention, and preventable mistakes.

That is not a minor inefficiency.

It is a capacity ceiling.

The Risk Is Not Limited to Wires

Wire fraud gets most of the headlines, and for good reason. Sending escrow funds to the wrong account can be catastrophic.

But paper is not the safe little analog refuge we sometimes pretend it is.

Checks can be stolen, altered, washed, delayed, misplaced, duplicated, or left uncashed until they become a reconciliation and escheatment problem.

Several panelists had stories about chasing people who would not deposit checks worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Mediate pursued someone who failed to cash a $100,000 check—even after it was reissued.

Grundhoffer recalled a $50,000 check sitting in a safe for roughly two years.

I once spent months begging a builder to cash approximately $60,000 that was sitting in his vehicle.

As Mediate put it:

It is funny because it is absurd.

It is not funny when the item is still sitting on the escrow reconciliation months later.

Modern payment processing is not only about speed. It is about reducing the number of places where a payment can be intercepted, altered, forgotten, mishandled, or left unresolved.

The Real Reason Title Teams Resist Payment Innovation

Title companies are not afraid of technology.

They are afraid of broken technology.

They have survived enough failed rollouts, clumsy integrations, duplicated workflows, and expensive “solutions” that created three new problems for every one they solved.

Hargraves captured it perfectly:

That is especially true when escrow funds are involved.

Nobody wants to discover halfway through implementation that the new process disrupted accounting, created Positive Pay exceptions, forced staff to rekey data, or added yet another platform nobody wants to monitor.

The resistance is not ignorance.

It is scar tissue.

And that changes what a good solution must look like.

What Modernizing Actually Looks Like Without Ripping Everything Out

The good news is that payment modernization no longer requires a full operational demolition project.

Deluxe Payment Exchange integrates directly with SoftPro Select, ResWare, RamQuest, and AccuTitle. Title teams can issue eChecks or use Print+Mail from within the title production systems they already use.

Existing accounts-payable and Positive Pay processes stay in place. Payments continue to reconcile as checks.

This is not transformation.

It is augmentation.

An eCheck is still a check. It simply arrives electronically instead of traveling by truck, plane, sorting facility, mail carrier, and prayer.

Recipients can deposit it through familiar banking methods. When paper is still preferred, Deluxe can print the check on high-security stock, place it in an envelope, add postage, and mail it for the agency.

As Dizon described it, title teams can finally get out of the office “arts and crafts process.”

That means fewer:

• printers

• envelopes

• courier runs

• overnight packages

• rekeyed payment details

• physical checks sitting inside the office

• opportunities for human error

And because the solution works inside the title production system, it does not create another manual bridge between platforms.

That part is critical.

A digital payment process that requires staff to copy information into a separate portal is not modernization. It is manual work wearing a nicer outfit.

The Best Change Is Small Enough to Survive

Title companies do not need to convert every payment type overnight.

In fact, they probably should not.

Mediate started with real estate commissions and gradually expanded into payments to attorneys, surveyors, vendors, and other recipients. She also used eChecks as a practical bridge when payments had to be corrected during off-site closings.

Grundhoffer described adoption as an ongoing process. Some employees became immediate champions. Others kept using the familiar ten-minute workaround because they did not believe they had fifteen minutes to learn the permanent fix.

There it is: the operational trap.

Teams repeatedly spend ten minutes on a workaround because stopping long enough to eliminate it feels impossible.

The answer is not a massive technology initiative.

Start with the payments causing the most friction. Show the team what stays the same. Keep a paper option available. Prove the time savings on a real file. Expand from there.

The goal is not to shock the organization into the future.

It is to make the better process easier than the old one.

From Bottleneck to Competitive Advantage

The obvious benefit is speed.

Payees can receive eChecks within minutes of funding approval instead of waiting for the mail or an overnight package.

But the real payoff is bigger.

Mediate was clear about what she wanted to do with that recovered time:

That is the point where payment technology stops being a back-office utility and becomes a growth tool.

• Faster payments improve the experience for agents and vendors.

• Cleaner records reduce reconciliation headaches.

• Fewer outstanding checks reduce audit and escheatment exposure.

• Less manual handling narrows fraud opportunities.

• Less grunt work gives experienced staff more time to solve actual title problems.

• And a team that spends less time printing, mailing, rekeying, tracking, and recutting checks can handle more volume without automatically adding headcount.

Tech is not just operational anymore.

It is how title companies protect margin, create capacity, and compete.

Fix the Last Mile Without Rebuilding the Road

The title industry has earned its skepticism.

Escrow is not the place for flashy technology, half-built integrations, or vendors who disappear the moment implementation gets uncomfortable.

But caution should not become a permanent commitment to paper, postage, and preventable work.

The better question is not:
Do we need to replace our systems?

It is:
What can we add to the systems we already trust that removes friction without weakening control?

Deluxe gives title agencies a practical way to issue eChecks and Print+Mail payments directly through supported title production systems.

No grand demolition.
No accounting overhaul.
No forcing every payee into one method.

Just a better way to move money through the last mile—and finally bring the closing process closer to being truly done.

Explore Deluxe Payment Exchange

See how Deluxe Payment Exchange service integrates with SoftPro Select, ResWare, RamQuest, and AccuTitle to help title agencies reduce manual work, deliver payments faster, and modernize escrow disbursements without replacing their core workflows.

Visit the Deluxe TPS Integrations page for integration details, case studies, FAQs, and ROI tools.

Scott Dizon
Director of Business Development, Digital Payments for Title & Real Estate
Deluxe
scott.dizon@deluxe.com
470-550-6488

Meet the Panelists

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

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**DISCLAIMER**

Title agencies should evaluate payment processes, escrow controls, security procedures, and regulatory obligations with their financial institution, underwriter, compliance advisors, and other appropriate professionals before implementation.

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

Thank you to our friends, contributors & sponsors:🔒 Closinglock, 🌍 Foreign Tax CPA, 🪄Business Witch Academy, 🧱 Brickhouse Consulting, 🖊️Dotted Line Signings & Our Paying Readers
📢 Partner With Us

🐐 Your Whole Team Can Be Wicked, Too

If your internal knowledge-sharing system currently consists of forwarding Wicked Title articles to everyone who might need them, we have a better option. Wicked Title Forum offers group plans for title agencies, so more of your team can have direct access to the news, research, resources and weird title rabbit holes we cover every week.

Explore Group Membership →

🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

First American Opens a Crypto-to-Cash Path for Real Estate Closings

First American Title has partnered with CryptEscrow⁠ to support buyers who want to fund real estate purchases with cryptocurrency. CryptEscrow handles the digital-asset conversion and delivers U.S. dollars into the conventional closing process, allowing title and escrow teams to receive fiat currency without taking custody of crypto. The companies have already completed a $4.2 million purchase through the model, and First American agents can access discounted CryptEscrow pricing through AgentNet. For agents, this creates a practical way to accept business from crypto-wealthy buyers without turning the escrow account into a blockchain experiment.

🏘️ When the HOA Gets Weird, Check the Bylaws

Estoppels and resale certificates may get most of the closing attention, but Rexera’s guide to HOA bylaws, boards and directors explains where to look when the question becomes who actually has authority to do this? Bylaws can help untangle signing authority, delegated powers, transfer procedures, amendments and board changes—especially with self-managed associations, recent board turnover or conflicting governing documents. The useful red flags: missing amendments, competing versions, unclear officer authority and procedures that don’t match the rest of the HOA package.

When “The Bank Screwed Up” Becomes an Actual Legal Claim

A new guide to pursuing financial damages against a bank explains why negligence, breach-of-contract and statutory claims require more than proof that something went wrong. Mandatory arbitration clauses may block a lawsuit, ordinary deposit accounts generally do not create a fiduciary relationship, and the claimant must connect a specific duty or contractual promise to a documented loss. For title agencies moving large sums through escrow accounts, the practical lesson is less “sue your bank” and more “preserve the evidence”: account agreements, transaction logs, notices, correspondence and a precise timeline may determine whether a serious banking failure is recoverable—or merely infuriating.

Before Deeds, Closings Required Dirt, Literally

In medieval England, transferring land could involve standing on the property and publicly handing the new owner a clod of earth or a twig—a ceremony known as livery of seisin. Written deeds eventually replaced the dirt, but the ceremony’s essential functions survived: unmistakable intent, witnessed delivery and public proof of who controls the land. Even the covenant of seisin in a modern warranty deed carries the old concept forward by promising that the grantor owns the property and has the right to convey it.

🎥 Can a Tax Sale Happen Before Probate Is Finished and Can You Lose An Inherited House?

🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to…

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

Rexera — Targets the closing tasks that are simple in theory and maddening in practice: HOA documents, municipal lien searches, mortgage payoffs and condo reviews. The value for title teams is not merely “automation”—it is fewer hours spent ordering documents, checking status, following up, re-entering information and waiting for somebody else to finish their part before the file can move. If a meaningful chunk of your staff’s day is currently devoted to getting the thing, checking on the thing and reminding someone about the thing, this is the category of workflow worth watching.

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  • 📅 Aug 14th | ⏰ 10:00am EST/7:00am PST | 📍 Atlanta Register Here

• 🎟️Navigating Complexity Without Losing Yourself, or Your Team

  　• 📅 August 11th | ⏰ 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST | 📍 Register Here

• 🎟️2026 DCLTA Home Run Summer: Washington Nationals vs. Chicago Cubs

  • 📅 August 12th | ⏰ 6:45pm | 📍 DC: Learn More

• 🎟️ Minnesota LTA Annual Convention

  • 📅 August 13th–14th | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Prior Lake, MN

• 🎟️ 2026 Alabama Title School in Mobile

  • 📅 August 18th | ⏰ 8am - 12pm DT | 📍 Mobile, AL

• 🎟️ Land Title Association of Arizona Annual Convention

  • 📅 Aug. 26–28, 2026 | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Chandler, AZ

• 🎟️ NYSLTA Annual Convention

  • 📅 August 30th – September 2nd | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Uncasville, CT

• 🎟️ OLTA Annual Convention

  • 📅 September 1st–3rd | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Westerville, OH

• 🎟️ North Dakota Land Title Association Annual Convention

  • 📅 Sept. 2–3, 2026 | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Dickinson, ND

See all events

💼 Job Postings

• Title Examiner / Senior Title Examiner — gpac
  Waxahachie, TX | $55,000–$85,000/year
  Handles residential, acreage and commercial title examinations, prepares commitments, identifies and clears defects, and works with underwriting counsel on complex title issues.

• Jr. Title Examiner — Title Closing Services LLC / Weichert, Realtors
  Cherry Hill, NJ | Remote | $55,000–$75,000/year
  Supports title examiners by reviewing proposed sale documents, preparing endorsements, updating commitments and invoices, and ordering additional county and state searches.

• Title Processor — Sonic Title Agency
  Dearborn, MI | $50,000–$55,000/year
  Processes title files by reviewing ownership records, deeds, leases, surveys and contracts, clearing discrepancies and coordinating underwriting and closing requirements.

• Title Agency Manager — Investors Title Company and Affiliates
  Brentwood, TN | On-site
  Runs day-to-day title agency operations, including staff and workflow management, commitments, policies, closings, settlement functions, financial controls and compliance.

• Title Abstractor — Galbreath Costner
  Charlotte, NC | On-site
  Searches deeds, mortgages, judgments, tax records and other public records, verifies legal descriptions and metes-and-bounds tracts, and identifies potential title problems affecting NC and SC transactions.

• Commercial Title Underwriter – Renewables Team — First American
  Remote — multiple U.S. states | $97,700–$130,300/year
  Underwrites commercial title for solar, wind, battery-storage, transmission and other energy projects involving complex leases, easements, access rights, mineral rights, surveys and multi-site portfolios.

• Escrow Officer — Old Republic Title
  Glendale, AZ | On-site
  Coordinates escrow transactions and closings, prepares instructions and documents, manages funds and disbursements, and confirms requirements for title insurance issuance are satisfied.

• Client Success Manager — Pippin Title
  Remote — U.S.
  Owns retention, account expansion and the client experience for Pippin’s nationwide title-search customers, including title agencies, lenders, underwriters and law firms.

• Business Development Manager – Texas — PropLogix
  Texas | Remote
  Develops relationships with title companies, escrow teams, attorneys and real estate professionals around tax certificates, HOA certificates, municipal lien searches and other closing due-diligence services.

• Title Closer — Workway
  Sanford, FL | $26–$28/hour
  Manages files from sales contract through closing, including title clearance, surveys and payoffs, lender balancing, Closing Disclosure/HUD preparation and closing scheduling.

💼 Place Your Job Posting Ad Here

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

Brought to you by our friends, contributors & sponsors:🔒 Closinglock, 🌍 Foreign Tax CPA, 🪄Business Witch Academy, 🧱 Brickhouse Consulting, 🖊️Dotted Line Signings & Our Paying Readers
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🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

⚠️ TRID Caught in Three-Way Squeeze. Will it pop like a pimple?

As if the CFPB request for information wasn’t enough…

Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →

• 🎥 TRID Architect Breaks Down What the CFPB is Looking at in its RFI

• 🎥 After More Than a Decade, Is TRID About to Change?

• 🐐 TRID Is Back on the Operating Table—and Someone Brought a Chainsaw: What Title Agents Need to Know

• 🐐 TRID Data: Closing Costs, Consumer Confusion and Title Workflows

President Trump’s nominee for permanent CFPB director, Brian Johnson, has said eliminating the Bureau is “not my intention.” While considerably less apocalyptic than Acting Director Russell Vought’s effort to halt most CFPB work and eliminate much of its staff. It is not necessarily comforting. Johnson would not identify a Vought decision with which he disagreed and said he would keep an open mind about the administration’s plan to reduce the Bureau from approximately 1,700 employees to roughly 550.

AND now the House Financial Services Committee is requesting public feedback⁠ on a 70-page discussion draft that would overhaul CFPB funding, rulemaking, supervision and enforcement. The proposal could affect how the Bureau creates and revisits rules governing mortgage closings, evaluates burdens on small businesses, uses UDAAP authority and interacts with companies regulated by state insurance departments. For title agents navigating TRID, RESPA and sometimes-murky federal expectations, this is an opportunity to explain where unclear guidance, duplicative oversight or regulation-by-enforcement creates real operational problems.

• Comments may address any of the committee’s questions and should be emailed to fsc119@mail.house.gov by August 21, 2026

Researchers at the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis have introduced a new metric for measuring homeownership

The “homeowners-to-population” (HPOP) ratio, which reveals that only 53% of U.S. adults own homes, significantly lower than the traditional owner-occupancy rate of 65%, highlighting the economic realities and changing living arrangements in America.

🎥 The ALTA 48 Endorsement series and how it relates to tribal limited waivers and consents.

A Bank Lent $3.85 Million on a Home Falling Into the Ocean—How Did It Happen?

Why Rising Premiums and Falling Claims Don’t Tell the Whole Title Story

🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to…

Is it Time to Bring Your Payment Processing into The Digital Age?

The closing may be digital, but payment processing often still runs on paper. Printing, signing, mailing, tracking and occasionally reissuing checks creates a block of administrative work that is easy to overlook because it is scattered across multiple employees and several days.

The operational cost is not just the time spent printing the check. It is the entire chain surrounding it: securing signatures, maintaining check stock, confirming delivery, responding to status calls, handling lost checks, placing stops, issuing replacements and documenting what happened.

But efficiency is only part of the challenge. CertifID’s Q2 fraud-recovery data shows that seller net-proceeds fraud rose from 4% of its Q1 submissions to 14% in Q2, tying mortgage payoff fraud as the second-most-common category in its dataset. Buyer cash-to-close fraud still led at 35%, but the larger pattern is clear—payment risk exists wherever money enters, leaves or changes direction.

Title technology providers are beginning to address that burden across the payment lifecycle. 🔒 Closinglock’s new SecurePay capabilities allow buyers to submit earnest money, option fees and cash to close—even before a file has been created—while its EMD Return Workflow allows deposits to be returned digitally to a previously verified bank account. Together, they target two places where an otherwise-digital transaction commonly falls back into manual work: collecting buyer funds at the beginning and returning them when a deal terminates. Whereas, Deluxe is making it faster and easier to disburse funds with their eCheck system that is integrated directly into your title production software.

However, digitizing a broken process will not fix it unless security controls come with it. CloseSimple’s seven “non-negotiables” provide a useful framework: keep payment communications inside a predictable, authenticated path; verify every party; independently confirm changes; and build secure steps into the title production workflow so staff do not have to remember them under pressure.

Taken together, these developments point to a larger trend…The industry is beginning to treat money movement as one connected operational system—from the first buyer payment through refunds, payoffs and final disbursements. The real opportunity is not merely to eliminate the check. It is to eliminate the manual chasing, disconnected systems and preventable risk surrounding it.

And this is why Wicked Title Forum gathered a panel of industry experts to dig in deeper. On August 12th, we’re sitting down with Deluxe, American Escrow Reconciliation, FIT Agency, ShortTrack, and Near North Title Group to examine where paper checks are still creating bottlenecks, what those delays actually cost title operations and what really happens when electronic payments are introduced into a tightly controlled escrow environment. Mark your calendars 📅 and keep an 👀 on your inbox. This is one you won’t want to miss.

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

Westcor Gives Agents an AI Shortcut Through Its Underwriting Library

Underwriter IQ⁠ gives Westcor agents on-demand answers drawn from the underwriter’s approved state guidance, manuals, rate materials and procedural resources. It is intended to handle routine questions and point agents toward the applicable source, cutting down the time spent digging through documents or waiting for help. Complex risks and transaction-specific decisions still go to a human underwriter—Westcor describes the tool as the first stop, not the final word. It is available now through Westcor Central, with additional approved materials being added over time.

⚖️Legal

National

The “Investment” That May Be a Mortgage After All

Congress and a growing number of states are moving to reclassify a tricky home-equity product—with consequences for how title agents identify, document and pay it off at closing.

Plus the house voted to ease banking regulations.

State

• 📰 New Mexico to Require Fingerprints for Amendments to Resident and Designated Home State Licenses

🤖PropTech, Cyber Security & Fraud

Fraud Refunds, Unprovable Wire Controls and a Bitcoin-Backed Mortgage

This month’s PropTech roundup follows the money—from mortgage-relief scams and wire-control blind spots to smarter AI adoption and a new kind of asset showing up at the closing table.

📖 Book of the Month

Liz Halabu Casselman’s Not Just a Title: A Journey of Growth in the Title Industry is less a technical guide than an honest look at building a career, managing people and finding your voice inside the title industry. Casselman shares the insecurities, leadership mistakes and uncomfortable growing pains behind starting an agency and acquiring companies—experiences that rarely make it into polished professional bios. Her larger lesson is that better leadership requires boundaries, empathy and a carefully built network of people willing to tell the truth. It is a quick, relatable read for anyone discovering that earning the title was only the beginning.

📢 Promote Your Book Here

📰 Headlines tell you what’s happening.
Everything else is what saves you time—and helps you make better decisions.
💻 Digital helps you handle the file. | 📬 Print helps you run the business.
🔔 Upgrade Now

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

Your title production file has a beginning and an end.

The buyer’s money does not care.

The earnest money deadline may start running before your team receives the contract, opens the order or sends the welcome email. If the deal falls apart, the file may be cancelled long before the deposit is authorized, returned, delivered and reconciled.

Those are the two dead zones in many earnest money workflows:

• Before the file exists

• After the transaction ends

Everything between those points may be beautifully digital. The edges are often held together with email, check stock and whichever employee happens to notice the problem first.

Dead Zone One: The Contract Exists. Your Title File Does Not.

Real estate contracts have an irritating habit of being signed outside title company business hours.

The buyer signs Saturday afternoon. The earnest money deadline begins ticking. The real estate agent wants to provide immediate instructions. The title company has not received the order, created the file or invited the buyer into its secure portal.

This is how delays, frustrations, workarounds and security risks are born.

Maybe someone forwards instructions from an old email. An unidentified wire is sent. A title agent is now receiving suspicious notifications from their bank’s automated system at 9am on a Sunday while standing on the side of a soccer field handing out Gatorade to 8 year olds while trying not to panic.

Or a buyer is told they need to wait until business hours on Monday, when the title company is open. Only by then the buyer will be 10,000 feet in the air on their way to a business meeting in Shanghai. And the clock keeps ticking.

None of those options creates the high quality customer service, financial security or consistency title agencies want around buyer funds.

A better pre-file payment process should give the buyer one secure, consistent place to submit funds without requiring staff to create the transaction first. It should also collect enough information to identify the payment, notify the right people and match the funds to the file when it arrives.

Because letting buyers pay anytime is only helpful if “anytime” does not produce Monday morning’s mystery deposit.

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Dead Zone Two: The Deal Is Dead. The Work Is Not.

A cancelled transaction may disappear from the closing calendar, but it remains stubbornly alive in the operations queue.

The agency may still need to:

• Obtain the required release authorization

• Confirm who is entitled to the funds

• Prepare and approve the refund

• Update the escrow records

• Communicate with the buyer and agents

• Track delivery or check clearance

• Preserve the supporting documentation

The closing revenue is gone. The workload apparently did not receive the memo.

And after collecting the earnest money electronically, many agencies still return it using a process involving a printer, an envelope and an optimistic faith in the postal system.

We verified your bank account well enough to take the money digitally. Now please allow seven to ten business days while we locate a stamp.

Perfectly modern. No notes.

Meanwhile, the buyer is anxiously awaiting their funds so they can make another offer.

What Those Dead Zones Are Actually Costing You

The problem is not limited to one late deposit or one refund check. Every time buyer funds fall outside the normal workflow, the agency pays for it—in labor, risk, buyer frustration and information it already collected but somehow forgot how to use.

1. Staff Time Spent Babysitting the Money

Someone has to identify the pre-file payment, match it to the order, answer the buyer, prepare the refund, update the escrow records and confirm delivery.

None of those tasks looks especially expensive on its own. Stack them across every exception, cancellation and status call, and suddenly a process nobody measures is eating hours of skilled staff time.

The deal may be dead. Its administrative afterlife is thriving.

2. Verified Information Thrown Away Between Steps

The buyer has already been identified. The bank account has already been verified. The money has already been connected to the transaction.

Then the payment changes direction and the workflow develops amnesia.

Every unnecessary handoff adds work. Every new request for banking instructions creates another opportunity for an email to be intercepted, information to be entered incorrectly or or a staff workaround to become the unofficial process.

Verified information should stay with the money—not disappear because the process crossed into another system.

3. Mystery Deposits and Reconciliation Detours

Accepting money before a file exists solves the buyer’s timing problem only if the agency can identify and match it later.

Otherwise, staff are left comparing bank activity, emails, buyer names, property addresses and payment amounts until somebody solves the puzzle.

That is not automation. That is an archaeological dig with an escrow deadline.

4. Buyers Stuck Waiting for Their Own Money

To the title company, an earnest money return may be one more cancellation task.

To the buyer, it may be the deposit needed to make the next offer.

A slow refund can keep the buyer from moving forward, generate repeated status calls and turn an already disappointing transaction into an ongoing financial problem. Collecting the money digitally and mailing it back by check does not make the delay easier to explain.

5. Referral Partners Managing Frustration They Did Not Create

When the buyer cannot get clear payment instructions—or cannot find out when a refund is coming—the real estate agent usually hears about it too.

Now the agent is chasing answers, calming the client and waiting for funds before helping the buyer pursue another property. The title company’s back-office gap has become the referral partner’s front-line service problem.

A smooth funds process helps agents keep their clients moving. A clumsy one gives them a reason to reconsider who handles the next deposit.

6. Fraud Exposure Reintroduced for No Good Reason

Every new request for banking information creates another opening for interception, impersonation, altered instructions or human error.

If the agency already verified the account used to submit the funds, starting over for the return may add risk without adding meaningful protection. The safer workflow preserves the original verification, requires proper release authority and controls the return from approval through confirmed delivery.

7. A Digital Process That Is Only Digital in the Middle

A payment button does not make the entire earnest money workflow digital.

If staff still rely on email to identify funds, spreadsheets to track exceptions, manual entry to connect systems and paper checks to return deposits, the agency has digitized a transaction—not the process surrounding it.

The real cost of the two dead zones is all the manual work required to bridge them. A complete workflow should remember who sent the money, where it came from, which file it belongs to, who authorized its return and whether it reached its destination.

Anything less leaves staff carrying the missing connections around in their heads.

Closinglock Reanimates the Dead Zones

🔒 Closinglock has introduced two capabilities designed to address these workflow gaps.

Its SecurePay open payment link gives title companies one standing link that buyers can use to submit earnest money, option fees, cash to close and other permitted payments—even outside business hours or before the file has been opened. Agencies can place the link on their website, in introductory emails, in email signatures or in materials provided to real estate agents.

Payments received before the order exists can be matched to the file after it is opened.

Melissa Neesen, vice president of operations at Reliable Title, said the company added the link to its introductory letters and began receiving secure earnest money payments immediately.

That is the operational standard agencies should look for. The goal is not merely to accept money earlier. It is to accept it earlier without creating extra detective work later.

On the other end, Closinglock’s buyer EMD return workflow allows an authorized refund to be sent to the bank account verified when the buyer made the original payment. According to the company, buyer and bank information is prefilled, the process includes internal approvals, status tracking and an audit trail, and the money reaches the buyer the next business day.

The real improvement is not simply that money moves faster.

It is that the inbound payment and outbound return no longer behave like two unrelated events.

Audit the Entire Life of Buyer Funds

🔒 Closinglock describes its new payment link and buyer EMD returns as two parts of one secure money-movement platform. The company reports protecting more than $800 billion across two million real estate transactions, with no funds lost to fraud. Its existing SecurePay platform supports digital earnest money and cash-to-close payments, and ALTA has previously reported that SecurePay moved billions in good-funds-compliant payments. Closinglock’s platform overview and ALTA’s coverage of Closinglock’s payment operations provide additional background.

Whether an agency uses Closinglock or another payment process, it should evaluate the entire life of the money.

Before the file opens

• Can the buyer obtain secure, consistent payment instructions?

• Can funds be submitted outside office hours?

• Who monitors payments that arrive before the order?

• What information will be used to match the payment later?

While the file is active

• Where can staff see the payment status?

• When are the funds considered available?

• How are exceptions, incorrect amounts and duplicates handled?

• Does the payment record flow into the agency’s production and escrow records?

After the transaction is cancelled

• What documentation authorizes the return?

• Who prepares and approves it?

• Is the agency unnecessarily collecting new banking information?

• Can staff and the buyer track delivery?

• What proof remains in the file when the process is complete?

If the agency cannot answer those questions without checking three systems, asking two employees and searching through email, the earnest money workflow is not fully digital and not adequately documented.

The file may open after the money arrives.
The closing may fall apart.
Your earnest money workflow should not.

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

🐐 About Wicked Title | 🔔 Subscribe | 🛒 Shop | 📢 Be a Sponsor

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

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🐐 Wicked Trends & Forces 🌳

Brought to you by our friends, contributors & sponsors:🔒 Closinglock, 🌍 Foreign Tax CPA, 🪄Business Witch Academy, 🧱 Brickhouse Consulting, 🖊️Dotted Line Signings & Our Paying Readers
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📻Your Title Playlist

📜More Educational Resources

• 📄 What Georgia Landowners Need to Know About Mineral Rights — Before It’s Too Late

• 📄 How Defect, Divorce, and Death Can Impact a Real Estate Transaction

• 📄 2026 Guide to ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys, a resource designed to help commercial real estate (CRE) professionals understand and apply the latest industry standards.

• 📄 How to Explain Closing Costs to Clients (HOA Fees, Assessments & Escrow Tips)

• 📄 When Is a Survey Too Old for a Commercial Real Estate Loan?

• 📄 Minnesota Commercial Purchase Agreement Contingencies: For title professionals, understanding these types of leases is essential to issuing accurate commitments, securing lender consents, and moving to a smooth closing.

• Notary

  • 📄 Mastering the Signing Table: How to Stay Grounded Amid Borrower Frustration

  • 📄 From Assumption to Accountability: The Notary’s Guide to Professional Integrity

  • 📄 What The Package Assumed About Your State - Between The Lines with Dottie

  • 📄 Your State Does Not Care What Another State Does

• 📄 Lease Types Title Agents Should Know: In this guide, Senior Commercial Underwriter Jennifer Barrow breaks down the different types of leases, specialized structures, and the terms that most influence underwriting and title clearance in both commercial and residential deals.

📌 If this helps you do your job better, faster, or safer—support it.

Upgrade your membership and keep this kind of work independent, honest, and actually useful.

Upgrade Today

Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)

🐐 About Wicked Title | 🔍 Search the Knowledge Base | 📢 Be a Sponsor

The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

Brought to you by our friends, contributors & sponsors:🔒 Closinglock, 🌍 Foreign Tax CPA, 🪄Business Witch Academy, 🧱 Brickhouse Consulting, 🖊️Dotted Line Signings & Our Paying Readers
📢 Be a Sponsor

Reminder🚨

Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →

• TRID Is Back on the Operating Table—and Someone Brought a Chainsaw: What Title Agents Need to Know

• TRID Data: Closing Costs, Consumer Confusion and Title Workflows

🕵️‍♂️Underworld Intel

In 2024, ALTA joined the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and 13 leading industry stakeholders to form the CONVERGENCE Collaborative, a coordinated effort to identify and develop solutions to help close the racial homeownership gap. In July 2026, ALTA announced the launch of CONVERGENCE Baltimore. This puts initiative continues to put title professionals inside the coalition shaping solutions for underserved buyers instead of waiting for those solutions to arrive at the closing table.

🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳

The patterns worth paying attention to…

A 2026 deed-fraud control roundup

👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow

New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist

Turn 7,500 Active Real Estate Investors Into a Title-Agency Prospect List —

⚖️Legal

National

Congress Asks Whether FinCEN’s Reporting Haystack Is Burying the Money-Laundering Needle

At a July 21 oversight hearing, Rep. Warren Davidson challenged the cost and usefulness of FinCEN’s reporting regime and specifically cited the Residential Real Estate Rule as a nationwide burden on title agents. The hearing did not change any requirement, but it placed the title industry’s compliance costs directly into the congressional record as lawmakers press FinCEN to prioritize actionable risk over sheer reporting volume. I can’t help but wonder if this will have any impact on FinCEN’s regulatory direction moving forward or it’s all just a show.

FHA Wants to Eliminate the Separate Partial-Claim Mortgage

FHA posted a draft five-year Reinstatement Advance Payment demonstration that would secure partial-claim or payment-supplement debt through an agreement under the FHA-insured first mortgage instead of a separate note and subordinate mortgage. Participating loans would no longer create a separately recorded subordinate federal lien requiring search, payoff, release or resolution during a sale, refinance, assumption, transfer or nonjudicial foreclosure. With no subordinate lien to record, title agents will face fewer complexities in processing and documenting transactions related to FHA loans. This could streamline title searches and reduce the time and effort required to resolve title issues during sales, refinances, or foreclosures.

Some Homes Need to Be Built. Others Already Exist but Cannot Be Sold. Congress Is Looking at Both.

FDIC reports fourth bank failure this year, second in July

Banking regulators have announced two bank closures in July, bringing the total number of bank failures this year to four. Estimates published by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. indicate these failures have cost the Deposit Insurance Fund approximately $123.6 million in total. - Submitted by Mark Nemetz, Residential Mortgage/Title Consultant

• 📰 HUD Freezes Virgin Islands Housing Funds After Finding Fraud, False Certifications and Almost No Completed Housing

State

• California Makes Changes to Parcel Mapping Rules

• Arizona Wants Your Thumbprints

• Michigan Has a Recording Problem

Claims & Lawsuit Stories

Texas Supreme Court Pauses an Order That Could Make a Title Company Pay the Same $131,412 Twice

Rise Title followed the estate administrator’s wire instructions instead of a probate decree directing the sale proceeds into the court registry; after the administrator reportedly disappeared with the money, a lower court held Rise in contempt and ordered it to replace the funds. The Texas Supreme Court has stayed that order while Rise’s mandamus petition remains pending, leaving a consequential question unresolved: how directly must a court order address a settlement agent before the agent can be punished for disbursing around it? Read more ->

A Quiet-Title Case Became a Four-State Public Records Whack-a-Mole

After Defendants won a counterclaim quite title suit over easement rights, the Plaintiffs attempted to improperly move the case to federal court four different times over three different federal jurisdictions. A Maryland federal court remanded the fourth attempted removal, awarded fees and imposed a narrowly tailored prefiling injunction.

💸Business Growth

Marketing Done Right

Title Alliance had a great social media message recently. Professional, branded graphic, easy to understand consumer messaging. This is a great example of good marketing:

🔒 Locks and a good security system protect your home... a title search and title insurance policy from us make sure your ownership rights are protected now - and for years to come.

Ask us all your title insurance (and closing) questions anytime! Our local teams are always here for you. 🤝
#Homebuyers #HomeBuyerTips #TitleAlliance #titleindustry

Why Branding Moves the Needle for Title Agents

🎟️Events

• 🎟️ Illinois LTA Annual Convention

  • 📅 August 4th–5th | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Chicago, IL

• 🎟️ Kansas Land Title Association Annual Convention

  • 📅 Aug. 4–6, 2026 | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Kansas City, KS

• 🎟️The 49 Advantage: Selling Fraud Protection

  • 📅 Aug 10th | ⏰ 10:00am EST/7:00am PST | 📍 Las Vegas Register Here

  • 📅 Aug 12th | ⏰ 10:00am EST/7:00am PST | 📍 Philadelphia Register Here

  • 📅 Aug 14th | ⏰ 10:00am EST/7:00am PST | 📍 Atlanta Register Here

• 🎟️Navigating Complexity Without Losing Yourself, or Your Team

  　• 📅 August 11th | ⏰ 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST | 📍 Register Here

• 🎟️2026 DCLTA Home Run Summer: Washington Nationals vs. Chicago Cubs

  • 📅 August 12th | ⏰ 6:45pm | 📍 DC: Learn More

• 🎟️ Minnesota LTA Annual Convention

  • 📅 August 13th–14th | ⏰ Times Vary by Session | 📍 Prior Lake, MN

See all events

💼 Job Postings

• Title Examiner — Williston Financial Group
  Remote | $28–$33 per hour
  Searches public records, examines chains of title, identifies defects and determines the legal condition of property titles.

• Senior Underwriting Counsel — First American
  Tarrytown, NY | $141,000–$206,800
  Provides underwriting guidance to title agents and develops legally sound solutions for complex title and insurability questions.

• Escrow Officer — GECU
  El Paso, TX | $68,578–$102,856
  Administers closings, collects signatures and coordinates title, lender and transaction documents with the parties involved.

• Senior Escrow Officer — Executive Title Agency
  Houston, TX | On-site
  Prepares closing documents, manages escrow requirements and funds, reviews lender instructions and coordinates Texas and Florida closings.

• Title Processor — ClearEdge Title
  Clearwater, FL | $19–$25 per hour
  Reviews title commitments, identifies defects, completes curative work and prepares files for compliant real estate closings.

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Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

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The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is 381 pages long, incorporates pieces of more than 60 housing bills and has been described as the most consequential federal housing legislation in decades.

Naturally, most of the early coverage has focused on homebuilders, lenders, investors, renters, affordable-housing advocates and the increasingly rare sighting of Congress agreeing on something.

Title agents received the usual assignment: wait until all those policy ideas become properties, contracts, liens and closing instructions. Then figure out what everyone meant.

The Act became law on July 11, 2026, without the President’s signature. Its stated mission is to increase housing supply and affordability, but its provisions do not move on one convenient implementation schedule. Some took effect immediately. Some require federal regulations, pilot programs or appropriations. Others depend on states changing their manufactured-housing laws.

For title agencies, the ROAD Act is less a single new compliance rule than a series of future file conditions arriving from several directions.

The first one has a date attached.

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The Institutional-Investor Ban Creates a New Buyer Question

Beginning January 7, 2027—180 days after enactment—a “large institutional investor” may not purchase or enter into a contract to purchase a single-family home unless the acquisition qualifies for an exception.

The penalty is not subtle: up to $1 million per violation or three times the purchase price, whichever is greater.

A large institutional investor is generally a for-profit entity engaged in investing in, owning, renting, managing or holding single-family homes that has direct or indirect investment control over at least 350 of them.

The threshold is not determined by counting the properties titled in the buyer’s name. Investment control is aggregated across related entities and can include:

• Owning the property;

• Exercising primary authority over investment or management decisions;

• Controlling the general partner or managing member of the property owner;

• Controlling the investment manager, management company or investment adviser;

• Owning more than 25% of an equity class, unless the entity is a passive investor; or

• Otherwise controlling the entity that owns the property.

“This LLC only owns seven houses” may therefore be completely true and completely beside the point.

The law also defines a purchase broadly. It includes purchases, transfers and other acquisitions through mergers, construction, foreclosure and bulk transactions—with or without cash consideration.

For purposes of the restriction, a single-family home includes a structure containing one or two dwelling units. Manufactured homes are excluded.

The Ban Has a Long—and Sometimes Complicated—Exception List

The law permits several categories of acquisitions, including qualifying:

• New construction and build-to-rent projects;

• Renovate-to-rent projects;

• Rent-to-own and homeownership programs;

• Foreclosures, deeds in lieu and other loss-mitigation acquisitions;

• Purchases from another compliant large institutional investor;

• Restructurings involving homes owned before enactment;

• Certain transitional purchases during the first two years;

• Newly constructed, renovated or converted homes in qualifying 55-plus communities; and

• Transactions combining permitted acquisition types.

Some exceptions are relatively straightforward. A build-to-rent project, for example, involves newly constructed homes intended to be managed as rental property. A renovate-to-rent acquisition must involve a home that fails to meet structural or core-system elements of local building codes and improvements totaling at least 15% of the purchase price.

Other exceptions come with their own compliance conditions.

A qualifying homeownership program must use a contract that the Act treats as a consumer-credit transaction secured by a dwelling or real property. The program must provide optional positive rental-payment reporting and meaningful financial support from the investor, such as a price concession, when the renter purchases a home.

A separate exception for programs intended to boost homeownership requires positive rental-payment reporting, a right of first refusal and a 30-day “first look” period for the renter.

The operational question is therefore not simply, “Is the buyer institutional?”

It is:

1. Is the buyer a covered large institutional investor?

2. Is the property a one- or two-unit home covered by the restriction?

3. Does the acquisition qualify for an exception?

4. Has the investor satisfied every condition attached to that exception?

Who Is Responsible for Policing the Institutional-Investor Ban—and How?

The law puts the compliance obligation on the institutional investor, not the title agent.

Large institutional investors must notify HUD annually that they meet the law’s definition and report how many single-family homes they directly or indirectly control. They must also identify the city and state where those homes are located, except in cities where they control ten or fewer properties. The first report is due January 7, 2027, when the purchase restriction takes effect.

Treasury is responsible for enforcement. The Treasury Secretary—or the Attorney General acting at Treasury’s request—may bring an action against an investor that violates the purchase prohibition and seek a civil penalty of up to $1 million per violation or three times the purchase price, whichever is greater.

Treasury may also issue regulations implementing the restriction in consultation with HUD, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those regulations cannot change the 350-home threshold or rewrite the statutory definitions and exceptions, but they may clarify how compliance and enforcement will work.

The Act does not assign title agents a statutory enforcement role. It does not require them to investigate an investor’s nationwide portfolio, verify its annual HUD filing or determine independently whether related entities collectively control 350 homes. It also does not say that a prohibited conveyance is void or explain whether a violation affects title to the property.

That leaves an important practical gap: the investor is responsible for complying, but the title agent may still be asked to close and insure the acquisition.

Underwriters, lenders and institutional buyers are unlikely to leave a potential multimillion-dollar violation undocumented. Before January 7, they may develop buyer certifications, exception affidavits, legal-opinion requirements or underwriting approval procedures for transactions involving covered properties and entity buyers.

The eventual title workflow may therefore require the agent to:

• Identify an entity buyer acquiring a one- or two-unit residential property;

• Obtain the buyer’s representation regarding its institutional-investor status;

• Identify the statutory exception being claimed, if applicable;

• Collect supporting documentation required by the underwriter or lender;

• Escalate questions about ownership structure or investment control to the buyer’s counsel; and

• Retain the certification, supporting documents and underwriting approval in the closing file.

The annual HUD reporting could eventually provide another source of information to validate the status, but the Act does not require HUD to create a public, searchable verification system for title agents. Unless implementing guidance provides one, the closing file will probably depend primarily on buyer representations, legal analysis and underwriter requirements—not a closer attempting to count hundreds of properties spread across affiliated LLCs before disbursement.

Manufactured Homes Are Losing the Permanent-Chassis Requirement

The ROAD Act changes the federal definition of a manufactured home to allow construction with or without a permanent chassis.

That sounds like a construction standard. It is also a state titling problem waiting to introduce itself.

HUD must develop standards for chassis-free manufactured homes, including:

• A distinct federal label;

• A distinguishing notation on the home’s data plate; and

• A distinguishing notation on the manufacturer’s invoice.

States must then certify that their laws treat manufactured homes without permanent chassis the same as conventional manufactured homes. That parity must include financing, title, insurance, manufacture, sale, taxation, transportation and installation.

Most states have one year to submit their initial certification. States with biennial legislatures have two years. A state that does not certify compliance must prohibit the manufacture, installation and sale of covered chassis-free homes within the state.

Congress has therefore produced the ingredients for 50 state-level implementation stories, because apparently manufactured-home titling was in danger of becoming too consistent.

What Title Agencies Will Need to Watch

Manufactured-housing practices already vary considerably by state. Depending on local law and the transaction, a home may be treated as personal property, converted to real property, documented by a certificate of title, surrendered into the land records or subjected to specialized attachment requirements.

Chassis-free homes may force states to revise:

• The statutory definition of a manufactured home;

• Certificate-of-title procedures;

• Real-property conversion and title-surrender requirements;

• Installation and attachment documentation;

• Vehicle or manufactured-home identification records;

• Tax classification;

• Lien-perfection procedures; and

• Forms that assume the existence of a permanent chassis.

For a title examiner, the question will not merely be whether the structure is sitting on a foundation. The file may require confirmation of its federal label, data plate, manufacturer’s invoice, state classification and compliance with whatever conversion process applies.

Agencies in manufactured-housing-heavy markets should monitor their state motor vehicle agency, manufactured-housing authority, legislature and underwriters. National summaries will be useful, but this particular change will live or die in state-specific details.

Whole-Home Repair Loans Will Create Recorded Liens—and Later Payoff Requirements

The Act authorizes a Whole-Home Repairs pilot program offering grants to eligible homeowners and loans to eligible small landlords for repairs involving habitability, safety, accessibility, energy efficiency, water efficiency, resilience and weatherization.

The homeowner grants are not the title issue.

The landlord loans are.

A qualifying landlord loan must be secured by a lien recorded against the residential property. If the landlord complies with the program agreement, the implementing organization may forgive the loan—and the statute says it must do so no later than three years after the repairs are completed. That creates an obvious future title problem: the debt may have been forgiven while its lien remains unreleased in the land records.

Those agreements can include requirements concerning affordability, tenant protections, lease extensions, rent increases, accessibility and completion of the approved work.

Once funded programs begin issuing loans, title agents who find these liens will need to determine:

• When the repairs were completed;

• Whether the landlord satisfied the program agreement;

• Whether the loan has already been forgiven;

• Whether the three-year forgiveness deadline has passed;

• Whether the lien should have been released;

• Whether a sale or refinance accelerates repayment before forgiveness;

• Which implementing organization can issue a payoff, satisfaction or release; and

• Whether affordability, tenant-protection or rental restrictions survive forgiveness.

The program may be administered through state or local agencies, nonprofits and community-development organizations, so payoff and release procedures may vary by both organization and jurisdiction.

Some files will inevitably involve a loan that disappeared from the program administrator’s books but remained stubbornly alive in the land records. Other files will certainly encounter liens still on the record decades later when the non-profit has long since moved, changed names, or been disbanded.

The Act authorizes the program; it does not put a fully staffed payoff department on the other end of the phone.

This is a genuine future title-clearing issue, not merely a housing-policy program. It is not an immediate search requirement, however. The program still depends on appropriations, grant awards and local implementation before these liens begin landing in closing files.

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HOME-Funded Properties May Carry More Resale Rights and Transfer Restrictions

The ROAD Act substantially expands how the HOME Investment Partnerships Program can support affordable homeownership. It expressly permits participating jurisdictions to preserve long-term affordability through shared-equity models, community land trusts, limited-equity cooperatives and community development corporations.

Those programs may use:

• Purchase options;

• Rights of first refusal;

• Other preemptive purchase rights;

• Resale-price formulas;

• Buyer-eligibility restrictions;

• Recapture requirements;

• Ground leases;

• Covenants; and

• Other instruments intended to preserve affordability.

These are not merely funding conditions sitting in an agency file. They may be recorded against the property, affect who can purchase it, control the permissible sales price, require repayment of assistance or give another party the right to acquire the property before it can be sold on the open market.

The Act also allows a community land trust, housing cooperative or community development corporation to acquire a HOME-assisted property temporarily—expressly including acquiring it “for entering into the chain of title”—to rehabilitate it, add a subsidy or prepare it for sale to another eligible buyer.

That creates real closing work. On a HOME-assisted resale, title agents may need to determine:

• Whether a purchase option or right of first refusal must be honored;

• Whether the proposed buyer satisfies program qualifications;

• Whether the contract price complies with the applicable resale formula;

• Whether HOME assistance must be recaptured from the proceeds;

• Whether the participating jurisdiction must approve the transfer;

• Whether a community land trust or other organization must enter the chain of title;

• Which covenants and affordability restrictions survive closing; and

• Which documents require execution or recording with the deed.

The law also addresses inherited HOME-assisted property. An heir or beneficiary may retain the property’s affordable-housing status if it becomes the heir’s principal residence and the heir assumes the deceased owner’s obligations related to the HOME funds. That could add program approval and assumption documents to an estate or inherited-property transaction.

The HOME amendments appear in Section 501 of the Act.

What Title Agencies Should Do Now

The ROAD Act does not require agencies to rebuild every workflow immediately. It does require them to separate the provisions already moving toward the closing table from the programs that still need regulations, funding or state implementation.

Prepare for Institutional Buyers Before January 7, 2027

The institutional-investor restriction has the clearest effective date and the largest immediate penalty.

Title agencies should:

• Ask each underwriter how it plans to address potentially covered buyers.

• Determine where entity type and intended property use are captured during order entry.

• Establish a process for flagging entity purchases of one- and two-unit residential property.

• Identify who has authority to escalate the file for underwriting review.

• Train staff not to rely solely on the number of properties titled in the purchasing LLC’s name.

• Watch for Treasury regulations, HUD reporting procedures and underwriter bulletins.

• Avoid creating a homemade certification and assuming it resolves the issue before underwriting requirements are established.

The title agent should not volunteer to become the buyer’s national portfolio auditor. The goal is to identify the issue, obtain the required representation and documentation, and place the legal and underwriting decisions with the parties responsible for making them.

Monitor Manufactured-Housing Changes State by State

Chassis-free manufactured homes will not move into every state’s title system in the same way or on the same schedule.

Agencies handling manufactured housing should monitor:

• State legislation changing the definition of a manufactured home;

• HUD’s standards for chassis-free homes;

• State certification status;

• New federal labels, data plates and invoice notations;

• Certificate-of-title and title-surrender procedures;

• Real-property conversion and attachment requirements;

• Tax and lien-perfection rules; and

• Revised underwriter guidelines.

Existing manufactured-home checklists should be updated only after the relevant state and federal procedures are known. A generic national checklist will not resolve a classification system built largely through state law.

Build a ROAD Act Watchlist, Not One Giant Checklist

During the Next One to Two Years, the law’s provisions will be developing on different schedules and through different agencies. A single permanent ROAD Act checklist will become outdated almost immediately.

A more useful internal watchlist should track:

• Underwriter bulletins for institutional-investor purchase guidelines;

• HUD’s institutional-investor reporting process;

• HUD standards for chassis-free manufactured homes;

• State manufactured-housing certifications and legislative changes;

• and Future action arising from the federal heirs’ property study.

Assign responsibility for monitoring each category and update the relevant workflow only when the next layer of rules is issued.

Overall, this housing bill doesn’t look like it’s going to hit the title side of the transaction very hard from an operational perspective. You can breathe a sigh of relief.

And this is only the operational side of the ROAD Act.

The same law could expand small-dollar mortgage lending, manufactured-home financing, infill development, commercial-to-residential conversions, build-to-rent construction, shared-equity housing and federally supported title-clearing work. Next week, in our companion article, we will look beyond the new file conditions and examine where the ROAD Act may create actual business-development opportunities for title agencies—and how to position an agency to capture them before everyone else notices the road is open.

Sources: Final bill text from the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; House Committee confirmation of enactment.

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Cheryl
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The Wicked Title Forum is a collaborative resource. If you spot something outdated or inaccurate, leave a comment—we’ll get it fixed.

**DISCLAIMER**

Content is for informational purposes, operational awareness and workflow strategy. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, it is not meant to be a compliance directive or replace the specific legal/financial advice of your retained experts. As always evaluate new information & tools with your underwriter/attorney, accountant/financial advisor, IT/security team, and internal policies, as needed, before implementation.

This site is partially supported by sponsor ads and sponsored content.

TRID has never been beloved.

Nobody has ever curled up by the fire with a Closing Disclosure and whispered, “At last, federal mortgage forms that understand me.”

Title agents have spent more than a decade juggling preliminary figures, changed circumstances, tolerance buckets, revised disclosures, lender portals, delivery deadlines and the occasional closing that must be rescheduled because a number moved in a way that Regulation Z found spiritually significant.

There are legitimate reasons to fix parts of this system.

But the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is now considering something much larger than a few repaired instructions and a less ridiculous title-premium calculation. Its new request for information reaches the timing rules, fee tolerances, waiver standards and refinance rescission rights that give TRID much of its consumer-protection value.

The forms are just the window dressing.

Change those rules far enough and the Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure may remain on everyone’s screens while “Know Before You Owe” quietly becomes “You’ll Know When We’re Done. And You’ll Like It.”

Quick Facts about the CFPB TRID Request for Information

On July 9, 2026, the CFPB published a request for information seeking comments on possible changes to:

• The TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule;

• The right of rescission for certain mortgage transactions; and

• Reverse-mortgage disclosures.

The request follows a March executive order directing the agency to consider tailoring TRID requirements for smaller lenders, replacing fixed timing rules with a materiality-based standard and exempting refinance transactions—including cash-out refinances—from rescission rights.

This is not a proposed rule. There is no regulatory text to implement, no new workflow to build and no reason to start rewriting closing procedures. Yet.

But, it is a very clear look at what the CFPB is willing to reconsider. And that’s the point. There is still time to add your comments, have a voice, and make sure good changes are implemented and bad ones are avoided.

Comments are due August 10, 2026. Read the complete CFPB request for information and submit comments here ->

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What the CFPB Is Actually Asking About TRID

The request contains 22 questions. Buried beneath the polite regulatory language are several ideas capable of rearranging the closing process.

The CFPB wants input on whether:

• TRID’s disclosure deadlines restrict mortgage access or increase costs;

• Certain transactions are unnecessarily complicated by the timing rules;

• Loan Estimates and Closing Disclosures could be delivered earlier;

• Revised disclosures could be issued less frequently;

• Consumers should receive more help waiving waiting periods;

• A materiality standard could replace or supplement fixed timing requirements;

• The pre-closing disclosure period and post-closing rescission period unnecessarily delay refinance funding;

• Fee-tolerance thresholds should be changed;

• Transfer taxes should remain subject to zero tolerance;

• Changed-circumstance rules need to become more flexible;

• The forms themselves should be redesigned;

• Electronic forms and signatures need additional guidance;

• Construction loans should receive tailored requirements;

• Small banks and credit unions should receive exemptions or alternate rules; and

• Reverse mortgages should receive an entirely different integrated disclosure system.

Some of those ideas are overdue housekeeping.

Others go directly to whether borrowers receive meaningful advance notice of the transaction they are about to sign.

TRID’s Consumer Protection Is Not Just a Stack of Forms

It is easy to look at TRID from inside the industry and see nothing but procedural friction.

The title company needs final lender figures.
The lender needs final title figures.
The real estate agents are still negotiating a credit.
The payoff changed.
Someone remembered the HOA.
The transfer tax was calculated using the wrong consideration.
The borrower is already driving to the closing.
Everyone is emailing everyone else with the emotional restraint of people defusing a bomb in matching company polos.

That friction is real. It costs money. It can delay closings for reasons that do not meaningfully protect anyone.

But TRID also changed where surprises are supposed to happen.

Before TRID, borrowers were more likely to encounter important loan terms and settlement costs at closing—when the moving truck was packed, the seller expected money and walking away was theoretically possible in the same way that abandoning your car on the interstate while moving 80 miles an hour is theoretically possible.

TRID attempts to move that information earlier. It does so through several connected protections:

1. The Loan Estimate gives the borrower standardized loan terms and estimated settlement costs.

2. Fee tolerances limit how much certain charges may later increase.

3. Changed-circumstance rules restrict when a lender may reset those estimates.

4. The Closing Disclosure presents the final transaction before consummation.

5. The three-business-day review period gives the borrower time to identify major changes.

6. Rescission rights give consumers an additional period to cancel certain credit transactions secured by their principal dwelling.

The CFPB’s own five-year TRID assessment found that TRID improved consumers’ ability to find important information, compare initial and final costs and compare competing mortgage offers. The evidence on whether consumers understood everything better was mixed, but leaned positive.

In its post-TRID supervisory sample, the CFPB found that approximately 57% of consumers received more than one Closing Disclosure and about 13% experienced an APR change between the first and last Closing Disclosure. Those numbers demonstrate that loan information frequently changes before consummation

TRID did not make mortgages simple. Mortgages remain mortgages.

It did make certain surprises more expensive for the lender delivering them.

Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →

A Materiality Standard Could Fix Nonsense—or Create New Nonsense

One of the biggest questions is whether a materiality-based standard should replace or supplement fixed timing rules.

At first glance, this sounds reasonable.

A $12 recording adjustment should not necessarily be treated like a changed interest rate. Correcting a misspelled street name should not threaten the closing date. A consumer-favorable change should not require everyone to spend another three days admiring it from a respectful distance.

Current TRID rules already recognize some of this. Not every change to the Closing Disclosure restarts the three-business-day review period. A new waiting period is generally triggered when:

• The disclosed APR becomes inaccurate;

• The loan product changes; or

• A prepayment penalty is added.

Other changes can ordinarily be disclosed on a corrected Closing Disclosure without restarting the clock.

The real question, then, is how much further a materiality standard would go.

A carefully written standard could distinguish technical corrections from changes that alter the consumer’s financial decision. It could prevent harmless errors from turning into avoidable moving-truck disasters.

A vague standard could produce a different definition of “material” for every lender. And materiality is a lovely concept right up until six lenders send six different closing instructions explaining what it means.

Would materiality be measured by a dollar amount, a percentage, the effect on cash to close or the effect on the total cost of credit? Would several individually small changes become material when combined? Would a $500 increase be immaterial on a million-dollar purchase but devastating to a first-time buyer arriving with exactly the amount shown on the previous disclosure?

Most importantly, who decides?

If the creditor trying to preserve the closing date also decides whether a last-minute change is important enough to delay it, the standard needs objective limits. Otherwise, the consumer’s guaranteed review period becomes a judgment call made inside the transaction’s deadline pressure.

Easier Waiting-Period Waivers Could Become Routine Very Quickly

The CFPB is also asking what guidance or model forms could help consumers waive the waiting period for a bona fide personal financial emergency.

The current standard is intentionally narrow. Wanting to close sooner is not enough. An impatient seller is not a personal financial emergency. Neither is an expiring rate lock created by ordinary transaction management. Nor is a moving company with a tight schedule. By try telling that to Sheila while she’s having her fifth entitlement meltdown.

There are real emergencies in which waiting harms the consumer. A borrower may face foreclosure, displacement or another urgent financial consequence. A workable waiver process is appropriate in those cases.

But a standardized waiver can become a standard closing document with impressive speed.

Anyone who has watched an “optional” authorization migrate into every file knows exactly how this happens. The exception gets a form. The form gets a checkbox. The checkbox gets preselected. Eventually, the consumer signs it between the address certification and the document nobody remembers why they added it in 2018.

If waivers become easier, the rules need to prevent them from becoming a condition of receiving the loan or a decision based on convenience by people who don’t fully understand the more serious consequences of their choices.

Otherwise, the consumer technically chooses to waive the review period while surrounded by professionals explaining how inconvenient it would be not to.

Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →

Fee Tolerances Are Annoying Because They Have Teeth

TRID requires estimated charges to be disclosed in good faith. Depending on the charge and who selects the provider, a fee may be subject to:

• Zero tolerance;

• A 10% cumulative tolerance; or

• No specific percentage limitation, provided the original estimate was based on the best information reasonably available.

The CFPB asks whether adjusting these thresholds could improve loan execution and reduce costs. It specifically identifies transfer taxes, which may be difficult to calculate accurately within three business days after application.

That is a fair problem to examine.

Transfer-tax calculations can depend on information that is unsettled early in the transaction. Seller-paid charges may still be under negotiation. Credits change. Exemptions appear. Inspections result in compensation. Consideration is revised. Local practice adds its own little decorative flourish.

But tolerance reform can travel much farther than fixing transfer taxes.

Tolerances force lenders to seek reliable figures early because an unjustified increase may result in a cure paid to the borrower. They turn inaccurate estimates into someone’s financial problem.

Loosen the tolerance system broadly and the lender has less incentive to obtain accurate title, settlement, recording and tax figures at the beginning of the transaction. The Loan Estimate may become easier to produce—but less useful to the person relying on it.

And when the final number changes, the lender is rarely sitting across the table from the unhappy buyer.

The title agent is.

The consumer sees a title-company employee, a settlement statement and a total that does not match the amount previously disclosed. Now the title agent gets to explain calculations they did not create, timing they did not control and a federal disclosure system that labels some title charges in ways no normal person would invent.

A true privilege.

TRID Reform Could Finally Fix the Title-Insurance Math

The CFPB’s request is not entirely ominous for title.

Its questions about form design create an opportunity to fix one of TRID’s longest-running absurdities: the way title insurance premiums are displayed when an owner’s policy and lender’s policy receive a simultaneous-issue discount.

The Closing Disclosure may show the lender’s policy at the full standalone rate and the owner’s policy at the difference between the total package price and that artificially inflated lender’s premium. The figures may comply with the federal formula while failing to resemble the charges produced by the state-filed title rate.

In particularly elegant cases, the owner’s premium can appear extremely low creating an impression of irrelevance.

Nothing says consumer clarity like arithmetic requiring a separate fact sheet to explain why the accurate price is not the price shown.

TRID also labels owner’s title insurance “optional.” Technically, it usually is. But the form does little to explain that the lender’s required policy protects the lender, while the optional owner’s policy protects the person purchasing the property and supplying the money.

A redesigned form could:

• Display the actual filed or promulgated premiums;

• Explain the simultaneous-issue discount without rearranging the prices;

• Clearly distinguish the insured parties;

• Preserve the consumer’s choice; and

• Explain what declining owner’s coverage means without turning the disclosure into a sales brochure.

If the CFPB wants clearer forms, title professionals have more than ten years of confused-buyer conversations available as research material.

Different Rules for Small Lenders Mean Different Rules for Title Agents

The CFPB is considering exemptions or alternative TRID requirements for small banks and credit unions.

This could lower compliance costs for community lenders and encourage some institutions to originate mortgages they currently avoid. More lenders and more mortgage availability could mean additional purchase, refinance and construction volume.

It could also create a tiered closing system.

A title agency might need one process for national lenders, another for qualifying community banks and another for credit unions using alternate disclosure forms. The documents could look similar while following different rules for:

• Delivery;

• Corrections;

• Fee tolerances;

• Waiting periods;

• Waivers;

• Closing authorization; and

• Post-closing cures.

The title production system must know which rules apply. The closer must know. The processor must know. The person covering someone else’s vacation must also know.

“Small-lender flexibility” may be a lender benefit that arrives at the settlement desk disguised as another complex compliance matrix where we have no control but carry most of the responsibility.

If tailored rules are adopted, title agents will need unambiguous lender instructions and machine-readable identifiers—not a scavenger hunt through a 200 page closing package to determine which version of TRID showed up. Or, you just click on the comment button and tell the CFPB why this might be a bad idea.

Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →

Removing Rescission Would Make Refinances Faster—and Less Forgiving

For certain transactions secured by a consumer’s principal dwelling, TILA gives the consumer three business days after consummation to rescind. Funds generally are not disbursed until that period expires.

The executive order behind the CFPB’s request directs the agency to consider exemptions for refinance transactions, including cash-out refinances. The CFPB consequently asks whether the pre-closing TRID period and post-closing rescission period create an unnecessary combined delay.

From an operational perspective, elimination is attractive.

The title company could fund and disburse sooner. Staff would spend less time holding completed files in rescission limbo. Borrowers needing proceeds would receive them faster. Payoffs could be sent earlier.

But rescission is not redundant merely because the borrower received a Closing Disclosure before signing.

The pre-closing period allows the consumer to review expected terms.

Rescission allows the consumer to cancel after signing the actual legal obligation. Those are different moments, especially in a cash-out refinance involving the borrower’s home and a new debt structure.

Personally, out of the thousands and thousands of refinance transactions I’ve done in my career, I think I’ve seen 1 recission occur and that was pre-TRID early disclosure requirements. Now perhaps my experience is not the norm. I’d love to see some statistical data from the lenders on how often buyers are rescinding both pre and post TRID, but I was unable to find any.

So, perhaps, having early disclosure rules and recission is an over complication. My greater fear would be that as a result of this request for information, the early disclosure requirements would be eased while simultaneously removing the recission period and that I think would be disastrous for consumers.

Reverse-Mortgage Disclosure Reform May Be the Least Controversial Opportunity

Reverse mortgages remain outside the ordinary TRID framework. Borrowers receive a mixture of RESPA and TILA disclosures, including the Good Faith Estimate, HUD-1 and Total Annual Loan Cost disclosure.

The CFPB is asking whether consumers would benefit from:

• Integrated reverse-mortgage disclosures;

• More realistic TALC assumptions;

• A table showing projected loan-balance growth in dollars; and

• Educational material designed specifically for reverse mortgages.

This part of the request could produce a genuine improvement.

A reverse mortgage has unusual terms, future balance growth and risks that do not fit comfortably into generic forward-mortgage disclosures. Replacing annualized cost scenarios with a clear dollar-based illustration may help borrowers understand what happens to the balance over time.

For title agencies, an integrated process could standardize closing documents and reduce confusion. The tradeoff would be another round of software development, lender coordination, procedure changes and training.

The industry has already paid dearly to implement TRID once. According to the CFPB assessment, the typical implementation cost was approximately $146 per mortgage for lenders and $39 per closing for closing companies in 2015.

Let’s not redesign everything, but maybe we could pull it into closer alignment with a few minor tweaks.

Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →

Would TRID Reform Be Good or Bad for Title Agents?

The honest answer is: it depends on whether the CFPB repairs the machinery or removes the brakes.

A focused reform package could be good for title if it:

• Fixes the title-insurance premium presentation;

• Clarifies genuine changed circumstances;

• Adjusts treatment of charges that cannot reasonably be known early;

• Prevents immaterial corrections from delaying a closing;

• Preserves review periods for changes affecting the borrower’s bargain;

• Creates better construction and reverse-mortgage disclosures;

• Supports secure electronic delivery and signatures; and

• Establishes clear, uniform standards that title software can actually implement.

A broad rollback could be bad for title if it:

• Makes early estimates less reliable;

• Allows more last-minute fee increases;

• Turns materiality into a lender-by-lender judgment;

• Makes waiting-period waivers routine;

• Creates different workflows for different lender classes;

• Pressures title agents to balance and disburse faster without receiving information sooner;

• Reduces cures while increasing closing-table disputes; or

• Removes consumer protections

Much of the apparent compliance relief would accrue to lenders. Much of the cleanup would land with title.

Again.

Title Agents Have Something Useful to Say Before August 10

The CFPB has requested information about both the advantages and disadvantages of potential changes. Title agencies possess operational evidence the Bureau will not get from studying lender compliance costs alone.

A useful title-industry comment could address:

• How frequently incomplete lender information delays the Closing Disclosure;

• Which title and settlement charges cannot reasonably be known at application;

• Which corrections currently delay closings without benefiting consumers;

• Which late changes materially affect cash to close;

• How tolerance rules influence the lender’s effort to obtain accurate title figures;

• How often consumers question the current title-insurance calculation;

• Whether borrowers understand the difference between owner’s and lender’s coverage;

• What title agencies spend maintaining different lender workflows;

• Whether a small-lender exemption would create additional settlement costs;

• What would be required to safely support same-day refinance funding; and

• Which reverse-mortgage disclosures create confusion at signing.

Specific examples will be more useful than “TRID is burdensome,” which is true but approximately as informative as reporting that closings involve paperwork.

Comments should identify Docket No. CFPB-2026-0018 and may address only the relevant numbered questions. They can be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal or by email using the instructions in the official request.

Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →

TRID Does Not Need to Remain Miserable to Remain Meaningful

There is no reason to preserve a bad calculation, an unnecessary redisclosure or a closing delay that gives the consumer nothing useful.

There is also no reason to pretend every rule described as “streamlining” will make the title agent’s job easier—or leave the borrower equally protected.

The best reform would preserve what TRID does well: early information, comparable costs, meaningful review and consequences for unjustified surprises. It would then remove the parts that generate work without generating clarity.

The worst reform would keep the forms, loosen the numbers, shorten the time, remove consumer protections, push lender responsibility and complexity onto small title agencies, and call the result efficiency.

Title professionals should not have to choose between consumer protection and a closing process that functions. But if the industry stays quiet, the people designing the next version may never hear where the current process actually breaks—or who gets handed the pieces when it does.

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Cheryl
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There is no shortage of opinion about the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule. There is considerably less data.

That presents a problem whenever the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau considers changing TRID timing requirements, tolerance rules, Closing Disclosure forms, refinance rescission rights or requirements for small lenders. A rule can be cumbersome and still provide value. A process can become more expensive after a regulation takes effect without proving that the regulation caused every dollar of the increase. A disclosure can be frequently corrected without telling us whether those corrections helped consumers.

This article assembles the most useful published TRID research from the CFPB, American Land Title Association, Texas Land Title Association, National Association of REALTORS®, Fannie Mae, title technology providers and other industry sources. It separates what the evidence supports from what the available studies cannot establish.

The Short Answer: What Does the Published TRID Research Show?

The strongest available evidence supports five conclusions:

• TRID created substantial implementation costs and appears to have increased ongoing coordination and disclosure-related costs for title and settlement companies.

• Revised Loan Estimates and corrected Closing Disclosures are extremely common, but published data do not identify how many corrections are material to the consumer or how many actually delay closing.

• Tolerance rules influence lender estimates, provider lists and decisions to absorb or refund settlement-cost increases.

• Consumers continue to struggle with the federal presentation of title-insurance premiums and with understanding the closing documents they sign.

• TRID initially lengthened closing times, particularly for purchase mortgages, but much of the measurable market-level disruption diminished as the industry adapted.

The evidence does not tell us how often borrowers exercise the right of rescission, what would happen if refinances funded immediately, how much title agencies spend maintaining different lender workflows, or what a small-lender exemption would cost the rest of the closing ecosystem.

How Reliable Is the Available TRID Data?

No single study answers every question, and the sources do not all carry the same evidentiary weight.

The CFPB’s 2020 assessment is the most comprehensive source. It draws from nationally representative mortgage databases, borrower surveys, controlled consumer testing, supervisory information and several industry surveys. Its market-level analyses can measure changes around TRID’s October 3, 2015 effective date more reliably than a retrospective opinion survey.

The CFPB was nevertheless explicit that it could not complete a full cost-benefit analysis. TRID applied to nearly the entire covered mortgage market, leaving no clean control group of otherwise comparable transactions that remained unaffected. Other mortgage rules took effect during the same general period. Some industry data were voluntary, retrospective and not nationally representative.

The CFPB’s Closing Company Survey illustrates the limitation. It received 115 responses, and responding companies accounted for approximately 3.7% of 2015 mortgage-closing volume. Respondents were asked in 2019 and 2020 to recall costs and practices from several years earlier. The survey provides credible evidence of what participating companies experienced, but it should not be presented as a precise national estimate.

Other industry studies add valuable perspectives while introducing their own limitations:

• NAR surveyed 1,014 randomly selected members, but the answers reflect real estate professionals’ observations rather than lender or title transaction records.

• ALTA’s consumer research included 2,000 current and prospective homeowners, but it measured responses to disclosures in a survey setting rather than behavior during live closings.

• TLTA published unusually detailed responses from approximately 125 title professionals, but the study was voluntary, Texas-specific and not formally weighted.

• Fannie Mae surveyed 205 lenders shortly after implementation, making the results useful for understanding the transition but less reliable as evidence of current conditions.

• Vendor studies from Qualia, PropLogix, Snapdocs and MetaSource provide useful operational evidence, but methodology and respondent details are not always fully disclosed in public summaries.

The best use of this research is cumulative. A finding becomes more persuasive when transaction data, consumer research and industry surveys point in the same direction. It remains important to state what each source measured and what it did not.

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How Much Did TRID Increase Title and Settlement Operating Costs?

The published evidence indicates that settlement-company costs rose by substantially more than ordinary inflation after TRID took effect. It does not prove that TRID caused the entire increase.

One-time TRID implementation costs

The CFPB calculated a median one-time implementation cost of approximately $39.20 per closing among closing-company respondents. The interquartile range was approximately $16.30 to $92.90. Smaller companies generally reported higher implementation costs per file: the median was approximately $90 per closing among firms in the smallest size quartile and $26.90 among firms in the largest quartile.

Respondents attributed the implementation expense primarily to:

• Understanding TRID and revising policies and procedures: 27.7% of reported implementation costs;

• Updating or creating information-technology systems: 26.4%;

• Initial staff training: 18.9%;

• Developing compliance tools, templates and job aids: 11.6%;

• Reviewing relationships and renegotiating contracts: 4.3%; and

• Other costs: 11.1%.

Ongoing cost per closing

The CFPB’s primary analysis—after excluding several outliers—reported that the median estimated cost of providing settlement services increased from $400 per closing before TRID to $500 during the first year after implementation and remained $500 in 2018.

The raw survey appendix, which includes responses omitted from the analytical table, reports a $350 pre-TRID median and a $500 post-TRID median. The CFPB’s own narrative and analytical table use $400 as the cleaner baseline, so that is the more defensible figure to cite.

The $400−to−$500 movement represents a 25% nominal increase. General inflation was nowhere close:

Using annual-average CPI as a reasonable approximation, $400 in 2015 had the purchasing power of approximately $405 in 2016.

By 2018, general inflation would have increased the $400 baseline to approximately $424.

The reported $500 cost in 2018 was therefore approximately 18% above the inflation-adjusted baseline.

Settlement work is labor-intensive, so private-industry compensation is another useful benchmark. Employer compensation costs generally increased about 2% to 3% annually during this period—roughly 8% cumulatively from 2015 through 2018. That would move a $400 labor-heavy baseline to approximately $432, still well below $500.

There is no BLS Producer Price Index specifically for NAICS 541191, Title Abstract and Settlement Offices. BLS identifies the industry as an area its PPI program does not cover. Consequently, no perfect settlement-industry inflation adjustment exists.

Which operational activities reportedly increased costs?

Among closing-company respondents providing usable answers, the CFPB reported:

• 94.2% said coordination with mortgage originators increased costs;

• 89.3% said changes in the number of revised disclosures increased costs;

• 87% said closing timing increased costs;

• 86% said consumer and real estate professional interactions increased costs;

• 78.8% said third-party coordination increased costs;

• 82% said training increased costs; and

• 56.2% said legal advice increased costs.

When nonresponses are retained in the denominator, the raw appendix produces the lower figures commonly quoted from the survey: 84.4% for lender coordination, 80% for revised disclosures and 75.7% for closing timing. The two sets of percentages describe the same responses using different denominators.

Did agencies pass the additional cost to consumers?

The evidence is less straightforward. Median reported revenue per closing decreased from $600 before TRID to $575 during the first year after implementation, then rose to $725 in 2018. The CFPB found that company-level increases in revenue were not significantly correlated with increases in reported ongoing costs. That means the survey does not establish that agencies simply added the TRID-related expense to consumer charges.

The most accurate conclusion is that the cost increase substantially exceeded inflation and appeared immediately after implementation, which is consistent with a TRID effect. The voluntary survey, retrospective estimates, possible changes in the services included and lack of a control group prevent assigning the full $100 increase to TRID.

How Often Are Loan Estimates and Closing Disclosures Revised?

Disclosure revisions are not exceptional. They are part of the normal post-TRID mortgage process.

The CFPB examined disclosure data from more than 50,000 mortgages originated between March 2016 and November 2017. It found:

• Almost 90% of the loans involved at least one revised disclosure;

• 62% received at least one revised Loan Estimate;

• 49% received at least one corrected Closing Disclosure;

• Approximately 57% received more than one Closing Disclosure;

• Approximately 13% experienced a change in APR between the first and last Closing Disclosure; and

• Almost half generated a post-closing Closing Disclosure.

Among loans receiving a post-closing Closing Disclosure, only about 1.1% showed an APR change and approximately 1% showed a finance-charge change. That suggests that many post-closing corrections involved administrative, nonfinancial or otherwise unmeasured fields. It does not establish that the corrections lacked consumer value.

NAR’s survey provides more context. When a Closing Disclosure was reissued, 39% of respondents reported a delayed closing and 1% reported a cancellation. Among respondents identifying a reason for reissuance, 73% selected a “minor error.” Examples included payoff adjustments, fees, closing dates, taxes and missing information.

Those findings expose a major gap in the debate. The industry knows that corrections are frequent. It does not have published transaction-level data showing:

• Which party supplied the changed information;

• Whether the change was financial, clerical or legal;

• How much the change affected cash to close;

• Whether a new disclosure was legally required or issued because of lender policy;

• Whether the correction restarted a waiting period; or

• Whether the consumer used the corrected information to change the transaction.

Current TRID rules restart the three-business-day waiting period only for a limited group of changes: an APR change beyond the applicable tolerance, a change in the loan product or the addition of a prepayment penalty. A corrected CD is therefore not synonymous with a delayed closing, even though lender procedures may create additional operational delay.

What Do Quality-Control Audits Reveal About TRID Errors?

Post-closing quality-control findings show that Closing Disclosure problems are recurring compliance issues, although the public data do not reveal their prevalence.

MetaSource reported results from tens of thousands of post-closing quality-control audits performed in 2018. Three of its leading findings involved the Closing Disclosure:

• Closing Disclosure tolerance violations;

• Errors in Calculating Cash to Close; and

• Closing Disclosure timing violations.

Missing or defective written settlement-service-provider lists also appeared among the leading issues. MetaSource observed that some lenders generated multiple CDs for small changes even when another disclosure was not necessarily required.

The published summary ranks the defects but does not provide failure percentages. It can support the statement that tolerances, cash-to-close calculations and timing are persistent quality-control problems. It cannot support a statement that a particular percentage of mortgage files contains those defects.

The title-insurance calculation introduces its own reconciliation problem. ALTA has documented that the federal simultaneous-issue formula may cause the title premiums displayed on the CD to differ from the actual filed or promulgated charges. In seller-paid-owner-policy transactions, the federal presentation can also require additional credits or adjustments to make the Cash to Close section reflect the parties’ contract. Many title agencies use an ALTA Settlement Statement or state-required disclosure to show the amounts actually charged and paid.

How Do TRID Tolerance Rules Change Lender Behavior?

The CFPB’s lender survey provides unusually direct evidence that tolerance rules affect estimates, provider selection and cure behavior.

In the CFPB’s voluntary survey of 99 mortgage originators:

• 71.7% said they sometimes, often or almost always estimated variable settlement fees at the top of the expected range to reduce the risk of tolerance violations;

• 65.7% sometimes, often or almost always gave consumers a written provider list containing only one provider;

• 79.8% sometimes, often or almost always absorbed or refunded charges that exceeded the applicable tolerance; and

• Only 24.3% sometimes, often or almost always entered agreements with settlement providers to limit rate fluctuations.

These figures cover settlement services generally, not title charges alone. They nevertheless demonstrate two competing effects.

Tolerance rules encourage creditors to take responsibility for unreliable estimates rather than transferring every increase to the borrower at closing. At the same time, they encourage conservative estimates and may discourage lenders from presenting consumers with multiple service-provider options.

The data support targeted clarification for charges that genuinely cannot be known at application—such as some transfer taxes, recording charges or property-specific title services. They do not support eliminating tolerance discipline across broad categories of third-party charges.

Do Consumers Understand TRID and the Closing Disclosure?

The evidence is mixed on whether TRID improved mortgage comprehension overall. It is much clearer that substantial confusion remains.

The CFPB’s controlled testing found that the integrated forms improved participants’ ability to locate key information and compare loan offers and final terms. The National Survey of Mortgage Originations also found that post-TRID borrowers were more likely to describe forms as easy to understand and valuable. Those findings support preserving standardized, comparable disclosures.

Other findings are less reassuring:

• Qualia’s independently conducted Homebuyer Sentiment Index surveyed 1,024 recent and prospective homebuyers. Only one in five recent buyers said they understood all the documents signed at closing.

• 44% of those recent buyers were surprised by higher-than-anticipated transaction costs.

• One in four prospective buyers said they did not understand the closing process.

• 55% of prospective buyers wanted face-to-face information before closing, while 44% wanted information through a secure application or portal.

• In NAR’s survey, only 24% considered the TRID forms more helpful than the prior forms; 26% considered them less helpful and 29% considered them about the same.

• 54% of NAR respondents believed consumers would benefit from receiving the CD earlier, even if it might later require revision.

These studies do not prove that TRID caused continuing confusion. They do show that the existence of a standardized form should not be mistaken for complete comprehension—and that removing review time would affect consumers who already struggle with the documents.

Why Is the TRID Title-Insurance Calculation a Consumer-Understanding Problem?

The federal presentation of simultaneous-issue title premiums is one of the best-documented title-specific problems in TRID.

When an owner’s policy and lender’s policy are issued simultaneously, state-filed or promulgated pricing frequently discounts the lender’s policy. The federal formula instead displays the lender’s policy as though it were issued alone and presents the owner’s policy as the difference between the combined premiums and the full lender-policy charge. The total may reconcile when the buyer pays both premiums, but the individual lines do not display the transaction’s actual policy charges.

ALTA consumer research

ALTA commissioned a 2016 online survey of 2,000 current and prospective homeowners. Participants were shown compliant Closing Disclosures and then told the actual cost of the policies. ALTA reported:

• 31% said the presentation was confusing;

• 10% felt they were being taken advantage of;

• Only approximately 27% reacted positively to seeing the owner’s policy presented as a marginal cost; and

• More than half said they received information about title insurance at closing or did not know when they received it.

Consumers preferred a detailed breakdown of actual costs and the ability to compare estimated and final expenses over the federal marginal-cost presentation.

ALTA home-closing survey

ALTA’s two-phase Home Closing Survey covered more than 800 pre-TRID homebuyers and nearly 700 post-TRID homebuyers. It found:

• 92% of post-TRID buyers reviewed mortgage documents before closing, compared with 74% before TRID;

• 12% of post-TRID buyers were unsure whether they had purchased an owner’s title policy, compared with 8% before TRID; and

• 74% of post-TRID closings occurred as scheduled, compared with 77% before implementation.

Advance review improved, but more consumers remained uncertain about whether they had purchased their own title coverage.

Texas Land Title Association research

At the CFPB’s request, TLTA surveyed approximately 125 title professionals concerning the simultaneous-issue presentation. A large majority of the published responses estimated that consumers questioned or were confused by the calculation in 75% to 100% of affected closings.

Most respondents estimated that explaining the CD and the separate Texas Disclosure added approximately five to twenty minutes at the closing table. Many estimated another ten to thirty minutes or more to prepare, balance and explain the two documents. Agents repeatedly described using the state disclosure, an ALTA Settlement Statement, a premium report or a calculator to show what the parties were actually paying.

These are practitioners’ estimates, not a measured statewide consumer-confusion rate. Their value is operational: the responses consistently describe title professionals creating and explaining a second document to translate the federal presentation back into the transaction’s actual charges.

Did TRID Cause Mortgage Closing Delays?

TRID produced measurable implementation-era delays. The strongest market-level evidence shows that the purchase-mortgage effect diminished within approximately two years.

The CFPB found that immediately after implementation:

• Purchase-mortgage closing times increased approximately 13%;

• Refinance closing times increased approximately 10%;

• Purchase originations temporarily declined approximately 14%;

• Refinance originations temporarily declined approximately 8%; and

• Purchase closing times returned to their typical pre-TRID range within approximately two years.

The CFPB considered the causal evidence stronger for purchase transactions. Refinance closing times historically fluctuated enough that a 10% short-term change was not unusual.

Several early industry surveys reported larger effects:

• Fannie Mae’s 2016 survey of 205 lenders found that 87% believed TRID increased closing time. Among those reporting an increase, the mean was 6.61 additional days and the median was five days.

• Smaller lenders reported a mean increase of 7.72 days, compared with 5.89 days among larger lenders.

• 44% of Fannie Mae respondents said they raised borrower loan fees because of TRID.

• A Callahan & Associates survey reported by HousingWire included more than 200 credit-union executives from 46 states. 96.1% reported delays, and the average closing time was 42 days against a 31-day goal.

Those studies measured the difficult transition immediately following implementation. They should not be used to claim that TRID continues to add five, seven or eleven days to the average mortgage closing.

More recent operational surveys show that unexpected delays remain important without isolating TRID as the cause:

• In NAR’s 2020 survey, 30% said TRID had slightly decreased the ability to close on time.

• PropLogix’s 2021 survey received more than 400 responses; 51.1% selected unexpected delays as a leading daily challenge, 41.7% selected excessive responsibilities and 40.4% selected insufficient time. Eighty-two percent of respondents were from Florida.

• PropLogix’s 2024 research included more than 230 responses associated with more than 50,000 closings. Unexpected closing delays remained the second-ranked daily challenge, behind generating new business.

The defensible conclusion is not that TRID has no effect or that it permanently added a fixed number of days. TRID caused a significant transition, the measurable market-wide effect declined, and disclosure coordination remains one of several possible sources of file-level delay.

Why Can’t Every Title and Settlement Charge Be Finalized at Application?

Current title-production research documents the amount of work that occurs between application and a reliable final figure.

ALTA and ndp | analytics collected 449 responses from title professionals across 47 states during 2025. The study found:

• 82% of purchase files and 59% of refinance files required review of more than ten documents;

• 21% of purchase files involved more than 50 documents;

• 27% of respondents still had to obtain some source documents in person;

• Nearly 60% generally removed three to five commitment requirements or exceptions before closing;

• More than 20% generally removed six or more requirements or exceptions;

• Mortgage payoffs appeared in more than 90% of transactions;

• 59% identified obtaining releases for prior unreleased mortgages as a significant curative pain point;

• 35.9% identified obtaining and coordinating payoff information as a significant pain point; and

• 31.9% identified obtaining accurate information from transaction participants as a significant pain point.

The study does not measure how frequently a particular title or settlement charge changes between the Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure. It does explain why some application-stage figures cannot be treated as finished invoices.

A title agency may not yet know whether a survey, release, corrective document, municipal search, additional endorsement, probate instrument or other curative service will be required. A payoff may change. A previously unreleased mortgage may appear. A public record may need to be obtained manually. The charge becomes knowable only after the underlying work identifies the requirement.

This evidence supports better lender-title data exchange and carefully drawn tolerance relief for information that objectively was unavailable. It does not support allowing placeholder estimates when the lender could have requested reliable information earlier.

How Fragmented Is Lender-Title Coordination?

Published vendor research suggests that the lender-title interface is already highly fragmented and communication-intensive.

Qualia and STRATMOR reported that:

• Nearly one in four lenders worked with more than 100 title companies each month;

• One in four spent more than 75% of their time coordinating and sharing information with title companies; and

• One in four made more than 30 emails or telephone calls per loan.

The public summary does not disclose enough about the sample to treat those figures as national benchmarks. The findings nevertheless show why lender-specific exemptions or alternative disclosure rules may shift costs rather than eliminate them. A title agency closing for many creditors would need to identify which rules, timing standards, forms and correction procedures apply to each lender and each file.

NAR found visible downstream variation in existing practices. Buyer and seller information was separated on the CD in 55% of respondents’ markets; another 25% said the practice depended on the lender. That variation exists under one federal framework. Additional creditor-specific rules could multiply it.

Electronic closing technology has not eliminated the coordination problem. Snapdocs surveyed 100 large lenders in 2023 and found that 74% had invested in eClosing technology, but only 28% of the lenders offering eClosings had achieved adoption above 60%. Legal permission and software availability do not automatically produce consistent execution across creditors, settlement providers, notaries and investors.

What Does the Evidence Say About Small-Lender TRID Relief?

The available research supports the proposition that smaller lenders experienced disproportionate implementation burdens. It does not establish that exempting them from uniform disclosures would reduce total transaction costs.

Fannie Mae’s early survey found that smaller lenders reported a mean closing-time increase of 7.72 days, compared with 5.89 days among larger institutions. The CFPB’s assessment also found that fixed implementation costs produced higher per-loan and per-closing burdens for smaller firms.

That evidence can support simplified guidance, longer implementation periods, common technology resources or carefully designed safe harbors. It does not answer the questions created by a small-lender exemption:

• How would a title agency verify that a creditor qualifies?

• Would eligibility depend on assets, annual originations, portfolio status or loan type?

• Which disclosure, tolerance and timing system would apply?

• What happens if the loan is sold?

• Would investors impose their own overlays?

• Would creditor savings be passed to consumers?

• How much would title agencies and software providers spend supporting parallel workflows?

No published study located in this review measures those downstream costs. Claims that an exemption will reduce the consumer’s price should therefore be tested rather than assumed.

What Does the Research Show About Reverse-Mortgage Disclosure Confusion?

Reverse-mortgage research documents substantial consumer confusion, but it does not identify which signing documents most often cause the problem.

The CFPB’s 2012 reverse-mortgage study found that consumers often struggled to understand:

• That the loan balance generally increases over time;

• That available home equity generally decreases as advances and charges accumulate;

• That borrowers remain responsible for property taxes, insurance, assessments and maintenance; and

• The circumstances that may cause the loan to become due and payable.

Urban Institute research also identified cost as a significant barrier. Citing a 2006 survey of counseled seniors, it reported that 69% considered reverse-mortgage costs somewhat or very high.

These findings support disclosures that show future balances, remaining equity and ongoing obligations in dollars under multiple scenarios. They also support a tailored explanation of non-borrowing-spouse issues, maturity events, payment plans and heirs’ options.

They do not establish whether the TALC table, counseling certificate, generic booklet, note, mortgage or another document is the principal source of confusion at signing. That question still requires targeted consumer testing and closing-level research.

Is There Published Data on Refinance Rescission Rates?

No credible national dataset located in this review reports how often homeowners exercise the right of rescission during the three-business-day period, either before or after TRID.

That missing denominator is critical. The absence of published rescission statistics does not prove that the right is unnecessary. It also prevents the industry from measuring the operational cost per rescission, identifying which borrowers use the protection or determining what problems are discovered after signing.

A meaningful analysis would require creditors and servicers to report:

• The number of covered refinance consummations;

• Rescission notices received;

• Completed, withdrawn and disputed rescissions;

• Rate-and-term versus cash-out transactions;

• The reason for rescission, where voluntarily provided;

• Whether fraud, elder exploitation, capacity, title, payoff or disclosure problems were involved;

• The amount and destination of cash-out proceeds; and

• The timing and cost of unwinding the transaction.

The existing data also do not establish the fraud, failed-funding, lien-priority, payoff or consumer-harm consequences of same-day refinance disbursement. Those risks should be measured before rescission rights are narrowed, particularly for cash-out refinances secured by a consumer’s principal dwelling.