Re: Title Insurance for Tax Foreclosed Property?

On 11 Nov 2003 06:13:55 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Todd) wrote:

>Does anyone know where I can get affordable title insurance based on
>the details I have described?  It would need to be a policy that a
>bank would agree to insure their loan (no hidden clauses).

Well, this is probably a long shot, but...

Title insurance companies are often quite *amazingly* vulnerable to
pressure... depending entirely on who is doing the pressing.

Usually the entities who have the most ability to get a title insurance
company by the short hairs and yank hard are a) builders (good-sized ones,
not few-spec-houses-a-year ones), and b) Realtors (high-volume, big-name,
high-pressure ones).

In this situation, MAYBE if you list the property for sale with a
high-profile Realtor who has the title companies kissing up like mad for
his/her business, you might find that one of the local title companies
changes the tune a bit.  MAYBE.

Of course, it'd be a gamble... because the odds of you getting any
(accurate) inkling in advance about whether this strategy is going to help
are probably pretty slim.  So you could well find yourself with your
property listed with an agent you would not otherwise have chosen... and no
title insurance benefit to show for it.

One question that you might be able to get an answer to in advance, though:
does your state Insurance Commissioner *dictate* that post-tax-foreclosure
properties are a different class of title insurance for premium scale
purposes?  It's possible that the Insurance Commissioner's office wouldn't
allow a title insurance company to discount such a property, even if the
title company wanted to.  (Yep.  Honest.  At least here in Washington, the
Insurance Commissioner is very concerned that title companies NOT reduce
title premiums for preferred clients.  In some situations.  Yet in other
situations it's apparently not an issue.  Or so I was told, when I worked
for a title company... and saw the sort of pressure tactics I'm talking
about working on a daily basis.)  If the Insurance Commissioner says
"Absolutely NOT" to insuring a post-tax-foreclosure property at regular
rates, then the odds of any title company doing so (even with a
high-pressure Realtor twisting its corporate arm) are probably slim to
none.  If the Insurance Commissioner doesn't care, the odds become
considerably better.

-- Michelle 

Please, Don't Breed or Buy While Shelter Pets Die.