🐐Title Underground📰: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor, Money for Nothing, and Rocking Down to Electric Avenue
This Week in the Title Underground (12-July-2026): Plus: AI under surveillance, defective foreclosures, suspicious wire holds, and title tech racing to own the first click.
🐐 Title Underground Top Stories
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Quick updates for Busy Brains
📄 A Foreclosure Buyer Found Three Bodies—and Possibly a Defective Foreclosure: A Connecticut judge has halted the sale and deed transfer of a foreclosed home after the winning bidder discovered three sets of human remains inside the property. The grisly discovery created a title problem because the timing of the owners’ deaths could determine whether the foreclosure was legally valid. If either owner died before the foreclosure began, heirs, estates, or state agencies may have been necessary parties—and CATIC reportedly would not insure the title while those questions remained unresolved.
⚠️📄 FBI Cybercrime Report Is a Reminder to Refresh your Wire-Fraud Plan. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report found cyber-fraud losses exceeded $20 billion, up 26% from the prior year, while business email compromise continued to rise. The better news: the FBI’s Financial Fraud Kill Chain was triggered in 3,900 incidents involving $1.2 billion in potential losses and successfully froze or recovered more than $679 million. For title agencies, the takeaway is painfully familiar but urgent: retrain staff, confirm escalation contacts now, and make sure everyone knows exactly who to call the moment money is redirected. Read it->
🤖 The Future of PropTech Looks a Lot Like the Future of Title Tech — Three recent PropTech essays argue that the next real estate technology winners will not merely sell better tools. They will try to own the starting point, the trusted data layer, and the workflow that moves the deal or property operation forward.
First American’s AgentNet Assist uses AI-assisted document analysis to help agents review title documents faster.
Qualia’s newer product suite includes AI and wire-risk tools embedded directly into the production workflow rather than sitting outside the file.
Fannie Mae’s title-waiver pilot uses automated title review for selected refinance transactions, and FHFA Director Bill Pulte has said expansion is coming.
DataTrace’s recent AI white paper argues the opposite side of the same infrastructure fight: title automation depends on validated data, title plants, and responsible deployment—not just speed.
The pattern is clear: title technology is no longer just trying to make examiners, closers, and escrow teams faster. It is moving closer to the transaction infrastructure. Own the starting point. Own the trusted data. Own the workflow. Own the profits.
🎥 WTG chairman, Pat Stone, share’s his thoughts on why curiosity, not fear, is the best response to AI’s evolution in title including the impact on leadership, cyber security, career trajectories, and more.
🎥 While, Clay Speakman is breaking down the rapid rise of AI agents, how they’re already managing title workflows, customer support, lead generation, and CRM tasks, and why the businesses that learn to work alongside agents today will have a massive advantage tomorrow.
🧩 Stay Ahead of the Curve…
Congress wants lenders to look at more than a credit score. Texas wants title businesses to explain exactly what their AI is doing. And a familiar RESPA problem is still hiding inside arrangements that sound perfectly legitimate until someone starts asking too many questions.
Paid readers get the part that matters: where these changes could create new buyers, new delays, new compliance exposure, and new opportunities before they become everyone else’s emergency.
This is the issue for anyone who would rather see the risk forming than explain later why nobody saw it coming.
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👀 Things Wandering Toward Your Workflow
New tools, vendor launches, and tech experiments making their way toward the closing table.
👀 Get on the Workflow Watchlist
Pythonic — AI agents built specifically for title and escrow workflows, with integrations into production systems like SoftPro and Resware. Worth watching because it focuses on the painfully practical stuff: order entry, CD processing, document routing, quality control, and reducing stare-and-compare work.
🎟️Events
🎟️ Michigan LTA Annual Convention
📅 July 12th–14th | ⏰ All day | 📍 Boyne Falls, MI
🎟️ALTA: Powering the Deal: Title Insurance and the Rise of Energy Transactions
📅 July 16th | ⏰ 1-2pm EST | 📍 Register Here
From utility-scale solar and wind developments to battery storage, transmission corridors and subsurface rights, energy transactions often involve complex ownership structures, long-term infrastructure rights and unique title risks that differ significantly from traditional commercial deals. In this ALTA Insights webinar, industry experts will explore the evolving role of title insurance in energy transactions and provide practical guidance on addressing risks tied to mineral estates, easements, encroachments, leases and nontraditional property rights. Attendees also will learn about the ALTA 36 Energy Project endorsement series and recent developments in states such as New York and Texas.
📻Your Title Playlist
🐐🎧🎶 Let the Bodies Hold the Deed — Title Industry Metal Parody
Listen now (4 mins) | A foreclosure sale. A winning bidder. Three sets of remains inside the property. Let the Bodies Hold the Deed is a dark, theatrical WTF Radio Original Parody by the Wicked Title Forum
🐐🎧🎶 Electric Avenue: The Title Insurance Remix
Listen now (4 mins) | Turn up the bass and follow the title search straight into the power grid with this original WTF Radio Parody by the Wicked Title Forum
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💼 Job Postings
Associate Title Examiner — First American
Sunrise, FL | Pay not listed
Reviews public-record information and supports title examination for First American’s agency operations.Commercial Real Estate Title Insurance Assistant — Land Services USA, Inc.
Remote | Pay not listed
Supports national commercial title transactions with production, documentation, and administrative work.Title Curative Specialist — Radian Group Inc.
Remote, Pennsylvania | $17–$24/hour
Resolves title defects and curative issues affecting real estate transactions.Title Insurance Closing Agent — Knight Barry Title
Manitowoc, WI | Pay not listed
Prepares closing statements, reviews transaction documents, and conducts residential closings.Title Insurance Examiner — Knight Barry Title
Burnsville, MN / Remote in Minnesota | $65,000–$80,000/year
Examines residential and commercial title records and evaluates insurability.Title Searcher — Near North Title Group
Le Center, MN | $22–$26/hour
Searches public records and prepares reports covering ownership, liens, taxes, judgments, and other title matters.Escrow Officer — Stewart Title Guaranty Company
Illinois | $47,831.39–$79,718.99/year
Manages escrow files and coordinates settlement activities for title transactions.Transaction Processor — Deferred
Remote | From $50,000/year
Processes 1031 exchange transactions and coordinates with title agents, escrow teams, lenders, and internal staff.Title Insurance Commercial Underwriter — Investors Title
Remote in North Carolina | Pay not listed
Evaluates and underwrites complex commercial title risks for the company’s commercial services team.Senior Title Officer — CENTRIC TITLE & ESCROW
Coeur d’Alene, ID | $24.42–$32.56/hour
Handles advanced title review and resolution work for complex real estate transactions.
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