Title Insurance Research Articles

Необходимость минимизации рисков при сделках с жилыми помещениями для защиты частных и публичных интересов

The article determines that at present there are high risks of identifying defects in the title or encumbrances of residential premises some time after its acquisition. The reasons for the situation that have arisen are analyzed, including the instability of the content of the concept of “real estate” in domestic legislation. The evolution of this concept is studied and the prospects for its development are outlined. The first reason also leads to the second, which is related to the imperfection of the system for registering rights to real estate. It was determined that it is not in the public interest to shift all the risks arising from a bona fide purchaser of real estate to the treasury. It is concluded that such methods of minimizing risks as notarization of transactions with residential premises and title insurance are more consistent with both public and private interests.

부동산권리보험의 가입자 특성에 관한 연구

Real estate title insurance is an insurance that covers unexpected defects in the real estate and transaction process during real estate transactions. Although it is a generalized insurance in developed countries such as the United States, Korea was somewhat skeptical about whether to implement it at the beginning of its implementation.
 Real estate title insurance plays a role of acknowledging that the contents of the registration of the ownership of real estate and mortgages are the same in the case of real estate transactions. Korea's real estate registration system only recognizes the presumptive power of the registered facts, but does not recognize the public confidence at all. Therefore, the usefulness of real estate title insurance can be highly evaluated as a system that can partially compensate for the shortcomings of the real estate registration system.
 In order to confirm this, in this study, the characteristics of domestic real estate title insurance subscribers were examined by targeting the responses of 367 ordinary people who had purchased real estate title insurance. The questionnaire was divided into four parts, including the experience of using real estate rights insurance.

미국의 부동산 거래와 권원보험

영미법상 부동산 권리로서의 소유권(Ownership)은 역사적으로 국왕만이 가질 수 있는 것이었으며, 대륙법계의 점유권과 달리 국왕이 정한 조건(tenure) 아래에서 일정 기간 토지를 사용할 수 있는 특별점유(possession)는 소유권과 같이 이해되는 경우도 있었다. 즉, 미국의 부동산법은 소유권(ownership)과 점유권(possessory right)을 구분하지 않고 혼용하고 있어, 소유권과 점유권을 구분하는 우리 법제와는 완전히 다르게 이해되고 있다.BR 또한 부동산에 관한 권리(interests in land)에 대하여 미국 부동산법은 시간의 흐름에 따라 현재 점유를 기초로 하는 권리(present estate)와 장래 점유를 기초로 하는 권리(future estate)로 구분하여, 하나의 부동산에 대하여 하나의 권리만을 인정하는 우리의 경우와 달리 부동산에 대한 중첩적이고 복잡한 내용의 권리가 인정되고 있다.BR 미국의 부동산 법제에 있어서 부동산에 관한 권리의 변동을 공시하기 위해서는 ‘deed’라 불리는 부동산 양도증서의 등록(recording)이 필요하다. 부동산 양도증서(deed)를 등록소에 등록하는 것은 우리의 부동산 법제에 있어서의 등기제도에 비추어 살펴보면 일응 공시방법으로서의 역할을 한다는 점에서 유사하다고 할 수 있다. 다만, 미국의 recording은 부동산 권리의 변동에 관한 법적 서류가 편철되는 것은 주정부가 아닌 지방정부의 관할에 속하며, deed가 recording 되지 않은 경우라도 공시되지 않은 deed에 의해 매도인과 매수인에게는 권리변동의 효력이 발생한다. 즉 등록소에의 등록(recording)은 대항 요건이다. 이와 달리 우리의 부동산 법제는 부동산에 관한 권리가 변동되기 위해서는 등기가 필요하며, 등기를 하지 않으면 권리가 변동되지 않으므로 등기를 성립요건으로 정하고 있는 점에서 미국의 부동산 법제와 이해를 달리하고 있다.BR 또한 미국의 부동산법제는 물권법정주의를 인정하지 않으므로 일물일권주의가 인정되는 대륙법계에서와 같이 부동산 권리 그 자체를 등기․등록에 의해 공시하는 것이 곤란하다. 따라서 대부분의 주(州)에서는 부동산 권리 그 자체가 아닌, 부동산 권리의 거래 서면인 양도증서(deed)를 연대적 순서에 따라 등록소(registries)에 편철․비치함으로써 간접적으로 부동산 권리를 공시하는 방식인 레코딩 시스템(recording system)을 채택하고 있는 것이다. 그러나 이는 공시방법으로서는 불완전하므로 거래의 안전에 문제가 있었으며, 이를 보완하기 위하여 권원조사(title search) 제도가 생겨났으나 그 역시 한계를 가졌다. 결국 이러한 한계를 해결하기 위한 방안으로 미국에서는 부동산 권리변동에 대한 당사자의 불이익을 구제하기 위한 권원보험(title insurance) 제도가 발달하게 되었다.BR 다만, 부동산 권원보험은 증서등록제도의 결함을 근본적으로 해결하는 것이 아니며, 오히려 부동산 권원보험이 보급될수록 증서등록제도의 근본적인 개선이 어려워져 미국 부동산 공시제도의 근대화는 멀어지는 오류에 빠질 수 있음에 주의할 필요가 있다.BR 본고에서는 미국의 부동산 거래관계의 기본과정에 대하여 검토하고, 미국의 대부분의 주에서 이용되고 있는 부동산 공시방법으로서 부동산 양도증서 등록제도(recording system) 및 그의 결점을 보완하기 위한 부동산 권원보험(title insurance)에 대하여 고찰하였다.

A Multi-Modal Approach to Digital Document Stream Segmentation for Title Insurance Domain

In the twenty-first century, storing and managing digital documents has become commonplace for all corporate and public sectors around the world. Physical documents are scanned in batches and stored in a digital archive as a heterogeneous document stream, referred to as a digital package. To make Robotic Process Automation (RPA) easier, it’s necessary to automatically segment the document stream into a subset of independent, coherent multi-page documents by detecting the appropriate document boundary. It’s a common requirement of a TI company’s Automated Document Management Systems (ADMS), where business operations are automated using RPA and the goal is to extract information from digital documents with minimal user intervention. The current study proposes, evaluates, and compares a multi-modal binary classification network incorporating text and picture aspects of digital document pages to state-of-the-art baseline methodologies. Image and textual features are extracted simultaneously from the input document image by passing them through Visual Geometry Group 16 - Convolutional Neural Network (VGG16-CNN) and pre-trained Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (Legal-BERT <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${}_{base}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> ) model through transfer learning respectively. Both features are finally fused and passed through a fully connected layer of Multi Layered Perceptron (MLP) to obtain the binary classification of the pages as the First Page (FP) and Other Page (OP). Real-time document image streams from production business process archive were obtained from a reputed Title Insurance (TI) company for the study. The obtained <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$F_{1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> score of 97.37% and 97.15% are significantly higher than the accuracies of the considered two baseline models and well above the expected Straight Through Pass (STP) threshold defined by the process admin.

On Optimal Insurance And Anomaly-Detection In Title Insurance Coverage.

On Optimal Insurance And Anomaly-Detection In Title Insurance Coverage.

Climate Finance and Energy Finance in Emerging Markets: Land Title Systems, Optimal Title Insurance and Antitrust.

Climate Finance and Energy Finance in Emerging Markets: Land Title Systems, Optimal Title Insurance and Antitrust.

A comparative analysis of assurance fund vis-à-vis title insurance: which offers better compensation for victims of land disputes in Malaysia?

ABSTRACT Land transactions are fraught with risk because of the nuances of property law and conveyancing practices, as well as skyrocketing land prices. This is demonstrated by the frequent occurrences of land title disputes which often leads to unsatisfactory litigation consequences for landowners. However, some landowners may be able to seek compensation through title insurance or assurance funds. This article explores the differences between assurance funds and title insurance by analysing the benefits and weaknesses of both as implemented in various jurisdictions. This research is critical for developing countries, such as Malaysia which is currently considering implementing a practical and effective scheme, to serve as a buffer against land-related litigation.

Legal Tasks for Promoting Real Estate Title Insurance: From the Perspective of Non Face-to-Face Transactions

Legal Tasks for Promoting Real Estate Title Insurance: From the Perspective of Non Face-to-Face Transactions

Hybrid Approach to Document Anomaly Detection: An Application to Facilitate RPA in Title Insurance

Anomaly detection (AD) is an important aspect of various domains and title insurance (TI) is no exception. Robotic process automation (RPA) is taking over manual tasks in TI business processes, but it has its limitations without the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). With increasing data dimensionality and in composite population scenarios, the complexity of detecting anomalies increases and AD in automated document management systems (ADMS) is the least explored domain. Deep learning, being the fastest maturing technology can be combined along with traditional anomaly detectors to facilitate and improve the RPAs in TI. We present a hybrid model for AD, using autoencoders (AE) and a one-class support vector machine (OSVM). In the present study, OSVM receives input features representing real-time documents from the TI business, orchestrated and with dimensions reduced by AE. The results obtained from multiple experiments are comparable with traditional methods and within a business acceptable range, regarding accuracy and performance.

Best Practices in Real Estate Cross-border Transactions

The article presents reflections on the best practices in real estate cross border transactions.Transactions on real estate markets have several aspects that make them highly complex, mostly due to their individual nature – each property is unique in terms of its location, structure and history. Cross-border transactions on the real estate market are becoming increasingly popular as the world becomes more globalized. The growing volume of this type of transaction presents a challenge for the modern real estate lawyer. It is impossible to create an exhaustive guide setting out all the hazards occurring in such transactions. This article addresses this difficult challenge by indicating the most important of them.It is essential and extremely helpful to enter into cooperation with a local counsel who will help us to explain the local specificity and who will take the legal differences into account. In addition, other helpful tools, such as a legal due diligence report or a title insurance Policy, should be carefully considered. One cannot forget about the importance of the local culture and customs, which may prove decisive at the crucial moment of the transaction. Finally, to be effective in working with cross-border clients, lawyers must have a good understanding of how people think and make decisions, and must possess good people skills. Respect for local customs and traditions, as well as understanding the local legal system while securing clients’ interests, is the key to a successful transaction.

The title insurance industry: infusing innovation and competition

Predominantly found in the U.S., title insurance is a form of indemnity insurance against financial loss from certain defects in title to real property, as well as from the invalidity or unenforceability of mortgage loans. In the U.S. title insurance industry, the so-called “Big Four” companies make up the overwhelming premium volume of the title insurance industry’s market share (85.3% of $14.8 billion in 2017). The cost-effective, technological innovation embraced by new fintech entrants, and adoption by existing companies recognizing the need to incorporate this innovation for their competitive survival, will transform the oligopolistic nature of the title insurance industry.

The New "Chain" of Title

Blockchain has recently driven a financial revolution in the realm of virtual currencies, smart contracts, and escrow services. Over the last year, the technology has also been mentioned as a harbinger of change in real estate transactions and land title research. Speculation about the technology’s likely impact in various industries is more warranted in some instances than others. Goldman Sachs, for its part, has suggested that, like other industries which have benefitted from the transparency and efficiency of blockchain technology, the title insurance industry will experience a dramatic boost in the near future. This suggestion, however, fails to recognize both the efficiency already achieved by industry title plants and the extent of legal problems that arise during title research—very few of which blockchain holds promise of mitigating. Public land titling offices, on the other hand, stand to gain significantly by adopting the technology. Because of blockchain’s decentralized and unalterable structure, the technology is useful for protecting records from natural disasters and government corruption. This Comment charts the real property legal issues that blockchain likely will and will not address. Developers and investors will find that understanding what blockchain can and cannot do for the real estate industry is crucial, because blockchain hype looms large and, as Bitcoin’s recently fluctuating prices prove, the way forward for blockchain investment can be uncertain.

Understanding Evolution of Institutions: The Land Ownership Recording System in the U.S.

This paper analyzes the evolution of the land ownership recording system in the United States to understand how the system has come to allow poor record keeping. My analysis covers the system’s evolution from the 1630s colonial recording statutes through four reform efforts: the introduction of 1) title abstracting in 1840s, 2) title insurance in the 1870s, 3) Torrens registration in the 1890s, and 4) the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) in the 1990s. The paper investigates why these efforts failed to improve the public recordkeeping quality, with a particular focus on MERS–as the most recent effort to modernize recordkeeping practices. After tracing the developments in the recording system before MERS, I compare MERS to the Depository Trust Corporation (DTC), a private company that digitized the trade clearance on U.S. stock exchanges in the 1970s, and served as a model for MERS. The comparison sheds light on institutional differences that prevented MERS from fully adopting the DTC model. I...

The impact of reinsurance for insurance companies

The study provides empirical evidence for the effect of reinsurance on solvency, profitability, and taxes of primary insurers. Our main finding is that primary insurers increasing in the use of reinsurance exhibit lower capital ratios. This impact involves the segments of health insurance, composite insurance, title insurance, and non-life insurance. Our interpretation is that reinsurance and capital can be seen as substitutes for improving solvency. This implies that, by sharing their risk with reinsurers, primary insurers can benefit from a relief on capital. Additional outcomes display an important relationship between demand and supply of reinsurance at the firm level, as we observe that, growing in the used reinsurance; primary insurers are more prone to providing reinsurance to other firms.

Antitrust and the 'Filed Rate' Doctrine: Deregulation and State Action

In its Keogh decision the Supreme Court held that although the Interstate Commerce Act did not exempt railroads from antitrust liability, a private plaintiff may not recover treble damages based on an allegedly monopolistic tariff rate filed with a federal agency. Keogh very likely grew out of Justice Brandeis's own zeal for regulation and his concern for the protection of small business — in this case, mainly shippers whom he felt were protected from discrimination by filed rates. The Supreme Court's Square D decision later conceded that Keogh may have been “unwise as a matter of policy,” but reaffirmed it on the ground that Congress had had ample opportunity to overturn it but had not done so. Under the doctrine consumer overcharge actions challenging a “filed” rate will be dismissed. The rate need not have been actively reviewed for accuracy or public interest considerations — indeed, it need not have been reviewed at all in any meaningful sense. The doctrine operates as a rule against collateral attack: once filed, a rate may not be collaterally attacked in the courts. However, an objector may be able to ask the regulatory agency to review a rate within its jurisdiction. Of course, that proceeding would not be in antitrust and would not provide treble damages and attorney's fees as an inducement. The doctrine becomes more complex and even less rational under partial deregulation. Today, for example, some rates must be “filed” with the overseeing agency although the agency has little power to adjust the rates except in extraordinary circumstances. Supreme Court analysis of filed rates has focused on rates filed with federal agencies. Several lower court decisions have extended the doctrine to rates filed with state regulators, generally without distinguishing the issues. Extending the doctrine to state agencies raises the troublesome issue that rate filings may serve to confer an effective antitrust immunity in situations where antitrust’s “state action” doctrine would not apply. The filed rate doctrine does not contain anything equivalent to the “authorization” or “active supervision” requirements that the state action doctrine compels. For example, a state provision may authorize an exclusionary tariff, giving no thought to competitive consequences. The state agency in turn may approve such requests with little or no evaluation. While the provision in question would not survive scrutiny under the state action doctrine, the tariff filing itself may have effective immunity under the filed rate doctrine. The Third Circuit’s McCray decision applied the filed rate doctrine to price fixing among title insurers, expressly rejecting the argument that application required the defendant’s to show “meaningful review” by the state regulator. The filed rate doctrine should not be applied as an additional bar to antitrust enforcement. Rather, application of the antitrust laws should rest, as it usually does, on the power of the agency to immunize conduct and the extent and nature of its supervision.

LEGAL ASPECTS OF TITLE INSURANCE AS AN ELEMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS

The problem of safety during the implementation of property transactions is all stronger integrated in adjusting of property relations, what their doubtfulness and mistrust cause to them. Property rights and financial risk of loss or limitation of right of ownership for the object of the real estate title insurance is called to secure. A reliable economical and legal instrument which is functioning successfully in the world leading countries and protecting the rights of market relations subject is title insurance.

Inequitable Subrogation: The Flawed Restatement Approach to Equitable Subrogation of Refinance Mortgages

If a refinance lender (or its title insurer) fails to conduct an accurate title search, or fails to act upon information it learns in a title search, the lender may find out later that its mortgage does not have the priority position it expected because another lien—one that the refinance lender did not discover or consider—has higher priority under the state’s “first in time, first in right” recording law. When this occurs, the refinance lender may request that a court assign its mortgage the priority position of the mortgage it paid off in the refinance under the doctrine of equitable subrogation. The Restatement (Third) of Property’s approach to equitable subrogation grants a refinance lender equitable subrogation nearly automatically, granting the refinance mortgage over an earlier-recorded lien regardless of whether the lender (or its title insurer) has been negligent in failing to discover or address an intervening lien. Proponents of the Restatement approach claim that it reduces or eliminates the need for title insurance on refinance transactions. However, these promises may have been overstated, and any benefits to consumers of avoiding title insurance may erode as technology is applied to the title search and examination process, making it less costly and more efficient. Furthermore, the Restatement approach often reaches an inequitable result because any benefits are merely extracted from diligent intervening lienholders. And meanwhile, the benefits of equitable subrogation mostly accrue to careless title insurers. This Article proposes an alternative approach, under which a refinance mortgage would be subrogated only when truly required to avoid an injustice.

UBEZPIECZENIE TYTUŁU PRAWNEGO DO NIERUCHOMOŚCI NA PRZYKŁADZIE JEZIOR WYSTĘPUJĄCYCH W OBROCIE CYWILNOPRAWNYM

Real Property Title Insurance in Civil Law Transactions Concerning Lakes Summary The article presents title insurance for civil law transactions involving lakes. The purpose of this insurance is to compensate for financial losses in the event of legal defects relating to the ownership (title) of real property coming to light after the transfer of such ownership. The paper discusses the origins of title insurance, which comes from the USA, and accounts for its rapid development. The issues discussed include the concept of title insurance, its distinguishing features, and the scope of protection it offers. The authors conduct an analysis of a model title insurance for compliance with Polish law. The result they obtain is that this type of insurance meets the requirements imposed by the Polish legal order. They then move on to the applicability of title insurance to transfer of property ownership involving lakes, and show that title insurance can be a significant advantage protecting a buyer’s interests. This is all the more important because the legal disputes which may arise from the transfer of property ownership in civil law involve many aspects, require specialist knowledge, and can be expensive.

Are civil-law notaries rent-seeking monopolists or essential market intermediaries? Endogenous development of a property rights institution in Mexico

As the fourth contribution in the ‘Land’ section, this paper forms a research ‘diptych’ with the next paper by Levy. Whereas she focuses on the notarial institution in mid-nineteenth century Mexico, this contribution examines it in a contemporary context. The notary is one of the chief components of property rights protection in civil-law systems, performing various public functions such as writing deeds for real estate property. Yet notaries are considered an ‘inefficient’ institution by many, due to the perception of rent-seeking behavior enabled by their near-monopoly over validating property rights claims. This study examines notaries in Mexico to unpack the apparent contradiction in the role of notaries in economic development. I use a combination of interviews with notaries and clients, and data on notarial practice and bureaucratic outcomes across the country, to examine notaries’ social function. The theoretical lens of endogenous development and institutional functionalism reveals an alternate explanation for their seemingly high-cost services, as well as their role in economic development. Mexican notaries have a dual social function: public representative and private service provider. They perform diverse and essential activities, which in other countries are performed by multiple actors such as real estate agents, escrow offices and title insurance companies. Thus, what is perceived as inefficiency by some can be interpreted as an efficient response to the context in which they operate, and their semi-privatized nature can overcome problems found in other bureaucratic arrangements.

Regulators at the Margins: The Impact of Malpractice Insurers on Solo and Small Firm Lawyers

Solo and small firm lawyers comprise more than three-fifths of all lawyers in private practice and are disproportionately subject to discipline sanctions. Sociolegal scholars have long sought to identify the factors that influence the behavior of these lawyers. Research suggests that lawyer professional liability (“LPL”) insurers regulate the behavior of large firm lawyers through the underwriting process, premium pricing, contract design, and risk management practices in order to reduce the risk of loss. This article explores whether LPL insurers also regulate the behavior of solo and small firm lawyers in ways that encourage responsible conduct. The articles draws on interviews of insurance industry executives, risk management counsel, and insured lawyers, as well as surveys of lawyers and insurer documents, to explore the impact of LPL insurers on the work lives of solo and small firm lawyers. The research reveals that unlike LPL insurers of large law firms, LPL insurers appear to regulate the behavior of solo and small firm lawyers in limited ways. The article explores the reasons why this is the case. It also discusses solo and small firm lawyers’ attitudes about malpractice actions, which shed additional light on the likely efficacy of insurers’ efforts to regulate the behavior of these lawyers. The article identifies a much more effective regulator of lawyer conduct — title insurers — and explains how this regulation occurs and the conditions that make effective regulation possible. It suggests some steps that LPL insurers could take to further encourage solo and small firm lawyers to engage in more responsible behavior.