🐐Make It Make Sense! Tangled Titles, Buyers with Cold Feet, and a State that Lost $100MIL in Revenue
This Week in the Title Underground (01-February-2026): Tax Season is here, FinCEN Webinar is Near, and Don't Miss How the North Pole Almost Lost in Santa Deepfake
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📜Educational Resources
🐐Knowledge Base Update Summary: Where to Find Realtors in 2026, Support Liens in TX, 1099s for 2026, & More
🌍 Foreign Tax CPA: Tax Season Reminder for Foreign Sellers: FIRPTA Refunds Aren’t Automatic
In case you missed it:
📄The Future of Closings: Real-Time Payments for Virginia Title Companies
🎙️PA Inheritance Tax & the Family Business Exemption: Where Does Real Estate Land?
🎥 The most common ways people hold title to property, and what each option means in the real world
🎓 Basic Concepts of Land Ownership (MS) (CE) ($)
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🕵️♂️Underworld Intel
📄Homebuyers are backing out of deals at the fastest pace in nearly a decade - More than 40,000 signed home purchase agreements were canceled in December, representing 16.3% of all homes that went under contract, according to Redfin.
🎙️The 2026 Great Housing Reset - Stop Adding Value and Start Showing It
⚖️Regulatory & Policy Updates
National
📅 Countdown to Compliance: A Demo of FinCEN’s Real Estate Report (Thursday, February 5th @ 2:00 p.m. ET)
📰OCC expands its reach with two actions on escrow laws - This is interesting from a broader industry perspective, however, this OCC action is narrowly aimed at real-estate lending escrow accounts held by federally regulated banks. It does not rewrite escrow law in general, and it does not reach into the day-to-day escrow operations of real estate brokerages or title agencies.
State Regulatory Changes
📰Texas House Bill 4063: Boost Security for Real Estate Transactions - Until now, unilateral memorandums of contract could be filed by non-owners, clouding the title and complicating closings. But with the passing of House Bill 4063, that risk is significantly reduced.
📰Florida Legislature Considers Strict Caller ID Requirements on Companies
📰Regulators halt rate hikes, saving Pennsylvanians $228M in insurance costs - The rejection of more than $100 million in proposed title insurance increases is expected to have a lasting effect on housing affordability, department officials said, by helping contain closing costs for homebuyers in a market already strained by rising prices and interest rates.
📰Mass. Court Clears Title Insurer In Lender’s Foreclosure Loss - A Massachusetts appeals court ruled that Connecticut Attorneys Title Insurance Company (CATIC) is not liable for a lender’s $1.6 million loss. The court found the insurer acted diligently to remove a previously missed, superior attachment on a Reading property after it was disclosed. Because the title issue was resolved, the insurer was not required to cover losses resulting from a separate, primary lender’s foreclosure.
📰6 States Trying to Eliminate Property Tax, Is Your’s One of Them?
🤖PropTech, Cyber Security & Fraud
New in PropTech
Fraud & Cyber Security
AI in Title
🐐Knowledge Base Update Summary: Where to Find Realtors in 2026, Support Liens in TX, 1099s for 2026, & More
📖 Books of the Month
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