🐐Title Underground📰: TRID on the Chopping Block, AI Vendors Under Interrogation & the Recorder Went Dark
Plus: Million-Dollar Buyer Penalties, the End of Chaperoning Payoffs, and the romance scam that swallowed a home’s equity. (19-July-2026)
🐐 Title Underground Top Stories
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Quick updates for Busy Brains
📢 This week everyone is busy talking about the ROAD Act, and we’ll get to that, but our first story is the one that should be making headlines….
🚨CFPB Opens the Door to a Much Bigger TRID Rewrite
The CFPB is asking whether fixed disclosure deadlines should give way to a “materiality” standard, whether fee tolerances should be loosened, whether small lenders should receive different rules and whether refinance rescission periods should be reduced. Narrow changes could fix legitimate problems—including inaccurate title-premium displays, avoidable redisclosures and forms that fit construction and reverse mortgages poorly—but a broad rollback could leave consumers with less reliable estimates and less time to react when the final numbers change. For title agents, fewer technical delays would be welcome; lender-specific rules, looser estimates and more last-minute cleanup would not. Read the CFPB request and submit comments by August 10 →
🐐 I’ll be taking a deeper dive on this topic in a special report later this week. Keep your 👀 on your inbox.
🛣️ Congress Just Passed the Biggest Housing Bill in More Than a Decade—and Title Is All Over It
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law July 11, bringing more than 60 housing measures along for the ride. For title professionals, the important pieces include a new compliance problem involving institutional buyers, recorded liens securing forgivable home-repair loans, major changes to how states title and insure manufactured homes without permanent chassis, and a federal study that could lead to grants for clearing heirs’ property titles.
The institutional-investor restriction alone has enough exceptions, ownership thresholds and entity-control questions to make a simple LLC buyer considerably less simple—and the penalties can reach $1 million or three times the purchase price. Here’s an early legal analysis of that provision.
The law could also produce business: small-dollar FHA mortgages with grants that may cover title insurance and closing costs, more manufactured-home and ADU financing, commercial-to-residential conversions, rural development, and capital returning to build-to-rent projects.
🐐 Later this week, I’ll dig into what belongs in the closing workflow, what could turn into new title-clearing work, and where this law may create actual transaction volume instead of another federal program everyone talks about but nobody ever sees. Keep your 👀 on your inbox.
🤖 A Cyberattack Took the Public Records Offline. Now What Happens to the Closing?
A recent South Carolina county cyberattack disrupted access to land records, creating the exact operational nightmare title agencies rarely plan for: the search cannot be updated, documents cannot be recorded, the lender may not authorize disbursement and the buyer may not receive the keys. The larger question is valuable nationwide: does your agency have a written protocol for a recorder outage, including who decides whether to close, fund, disburse or hold everything until the records return?
⚠️ Twenty-Nine States Still Have No Deed-Theft Law
EquityProtect’s latest Property Protection Scorecard found that deed-theft protections expanded during the second quarter—but 29 states still have no statute specifically addressing the crime. Have you considered what you can do to provide education and protection to your clients as part of the closing process? It could be an excellent way to build that relationship and secure word of mouth referrals post-closing.
🤖 Fannie Mae Says Your Lender’s AI Vendors Are Part of the Risk
Fannie Mae has issued a new AI-governance framework for multifamily lenders, requiring written policies, named responsibility, annual reviews and controls over vendors and subcontractors that are no less protective than the lender’s own. Title companies are not directly governed by the letter, but anyone supplying title, closing, data or automation services to Fannie multifamily lenders should expect tougher vendor questionnaires and requests to explain what AI touches the work, what it does and how its output is controlled. Read the lender letter
🐐 The Big Headlines - but written for title…
The free edition highlights a few of the biggest stories impacting title & escrow right now — but the full version of the Title Underground and Wicked Title Forum as a whole goes much deeper into the operational, legal, market, and strategic shifts unfolding underneath them.
This week, members also explored:
🐐Wicked Trends & Forces🌳 The patterns worth paying attention to…
🕵️♂️ The operational risk your business continuity plan should be considering but isn’t.
🤖 The AI paper trail that may be coming for your vendor stack.
⚖️ How some new bills under consideration that could speed up payments while also causing funding delays. Regulatory updates for CA, ID, MA, & PA.
💔 Heartbreaking scams that are underreported.
and more.
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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
Title Processors: Your Payoff Shouldn’t Need a Full-Time Chaperone!
🔒 Closinglock now handles payoff retrieval and verification—and is building toward a fully connected payoff request-to-wire process. Find out how much time it will save you per file ->
TitleEase–Contract2Close integration: Contract data can now move into TitleEase while milestones and documents flow back to the transaction-management platform. It continues the race to capture the transaction earlier and make title part of the brokerage workflow. However, we covered TitleEase and the “own the first click” pattern very recently, so I would only use this as a one-line workflow-watchlist item.
🎟️Events
🎟️The ROAD Ahead: What New Housing Legislation Means for Title Professionals
• 📅 July 21st | ⏰ 10:00am EST/7:00am PST | 📍 Register Here
🎟️The Hidden Influence: Identifying and Addressing Unconscious Bias in the Workplace
• 📅 July 22nd | ⏰ 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST | 📍 Register Here
🎟️ 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
• 📅 August 10th | ⏰ All Day | 📍 Las Vegas, Nevada
• 📅 August 12th | ⏰ All Day | 📍 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 📅 August 14th | ⏰ All Day | 📍 Atlanta, Georgia
🎟️Navigating Complexity Without Losing Yourself, or Your Team
• 📅 August 11th | ⏰ 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST | 📍 Register Here
🎟️Ready to Rise? Discover ALTA’s National Rising Title Professionals Program
• 📅 August 12th | ⏰ 10:00am EST/7:00am PST | 📍 Register Here
Did your email cut off this newsletter? Be sure to read to the end.
💼 Job Postings
Commercial Title Assistant – First American
Portland, Oregon | $20.31–$27.09 per hour
Supports commercial escrow closings and recordings, including complex multi-property and multi-state transactions.Recording Document Specialist – Old Republic Title
Washington, remote | $20–$24 per hour
Reviews and submits real-estate documents for recording while monitoring accuracy, acceptance and turnaround times.Commercial Title Processor – Westcor Land Title Insurance Company
Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania
Coordinates commercial title files, documentation and production work through commitment and closing.Title Examiner – Investors Title Company and Affiliates
Michigan, remote
Examines public records, identifies defects and exceptions, and prepares title products for Michigan transactions.Senior Title Examiner – Old Republic Title
Virginia, remote
Handles complex title examinations and provides experienced guidance on ownership, liens, encumbrances and insurability.Commercial Title Examiner, Michigan – First American
Michigan, remote
Examines complex commercial properties and produces title commitments for transactions involving varied ownership and encumbrance issues.Title Examiner, Tennessee – Title Resources Group
Tennessee, remote
Searches and evaluates Tennessee land records to identify title risks and prepare accurate commitments.Title Processor – ClearEdge Title
Texas, remote
Coordinates title files, reviews supporting documents and helps move orders from search and examination through clearance.Title Review Specialist – HNE
United States, remote | $25–$27 per hour
Reviews title reports and supporting documentation for accuracy, completeness and unresolved clearance requirements.Title Agent – Contract Land Staff
Fairfax, Virginia
Performs ownership research and title analysis supporting right-of-way and land-acquisition projects.
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Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Contact Me (or hit reply)
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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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