 Hi, I'm Realtor Sara Maro with Cell State Ace Realty. Today I get to talk title with expert Dana Schnor, a Fidelity National title. Dana lives here in Longmont, and she's been in the title space for 24 years. She seems to know absolutely everyone in local real estate and in legal circles too. She masterfully liaises between professionals of all types. She's a wealth of detailed knowledge, and she's a ton of fun. Dana has been in Longmont for over 40 years, and this coming summer, she's celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary. She's got two amazing grown kids and six grandkids who are all heavily involved in activities, sports, and stock shows. So she stays really busy, but she's made a little time today to help us understand the most important part of a home sale, the closing. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me today. Of course. Great. Why don't we jump right in? So why don't you tell us a little bit about Fidelity National title, your role there, and what you love about your job? Well, Fidelity National title is probably the largest title insurance company in the nation. Wow. We write one out of every four policies in the nation, and we're probably at this moment, I believe we have $1.8 billion in claims reserves. $1.8 billion in claims reserves. What does that mean? So that means that if your buyer, who you represented and we did the closing, has some kind of a claim after closing, something happens that maybe someone's error comes out and says, oh gosh, you sold my grandpa's house, and I found this old will, and in the will, the house was given to me. And we didn't record it as, we didn't know about it, but I'm sorry, but the house is mine. Now we might have a claim for that person, that poor buyer now that owns the home is thinking, what, how do I, I don't know that I own the home anymore. And so they call the title insurance company and then we start looking into things and that could open up a claim for us and we would then try to work that out with both the buyer and the claimant. So that sort of segues nicely into my second question, which is like, is title, is mostly what you are an insurance company? Is title, does title really refer to like the insurance of ownership and the like the protection of one's ownership? So title insurance is, it's kind of boring, but we are the only insurance company that ensures the past. What you usually have is life insurance, auto insurance, those kinds of insurances that cover things that will happen in the future. Title insurance covers what's happened on the property. And when I say on the, what's happened, anything that's been recorded against the property since we actually go back to patent. And we try to bring all of those documents forward and do our examination on the home when we receive the contract. And so what we're doing is ensuring to the buyer that after you sign all your documents that you own that home, lock, stock and barrel, free of the seller's liens, free of any other prior owner's problems, everything is free and clear and that buyer owns that property. And they don't have any problems going forward. Gotcha. So the claimant in the situation that you described opens a claim, should something come up from the past? Really, it's the only, all you're really doing is dealing with the past. Right, right, right. And it's where like she, that example, she would have said, hey, there's a discrepancy between a will or an estate that's out there and the actual deed of ownership. And that's where you guys come in. Okay. And so we would open a file and then obviously our attorneys would start that and that's how the claim process at that point would take over and then they'd try to work that out with everyone. Gotcha, so let's reel it back a little bit. So that's what fidelity is, that's who you guys are. Can you tell us about your role there? I am the sales rep and so I probably have the most fun job. I get to take my realtor friends out to lunch and or we might have drinks together after work. We probably develop a relationship after several years and I have to admit that some of my greatest friends started out as my clients and I've been in the business about 24 years now and I've got great friends and it's really just been my whole life. The last 24 years. Wow. So this is my second career and I have enjoyed every moment of it. So your role when you're in sales and you're in title is your clients are mostly realtors. I assume there's sometimes attorneys. Ever any individuals or? No, well we get for sale by owner contracts. Do we have a relationship with those sellers and buyers? No. We've been referred probably by an attorney or by a realtor. We really don't deal with the public. We don't go out and solicit their business. Gotcha. Gotcha. So our business comes from lenders, realtors and attorneys and once in a while we'll do some work for somebody that maybe has an acreage that's wanting to subdivide it and we might have to help them in that way but typically it's those three that are clients. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, even as a realtor I'm not super clear. You know, I know you guys work with ownership but again, there's a lot of definitions in title. There's a lot of vocabulary in terms. So I kind of wanted to get into that. Like, I know that a deed is an instrument that's used to transfer ownership but I know there's a lot of different ways to hold title, to hold a deed. Is that the same thing? Can you talk a little bit about types, like sort of ways to hold title and a little bit about just deeds? Well, first of all, I want to say that anyone and everyone should always seek legal advice on tenancy, on a title. You mean the way they can take title. So they can take title as a joint tenance with the rights of survivorship. So that might be a husband and wife, could be a mom and a daughter and a son as joint tenants and what that typically, what that means is that upon the death of one of those people, title goes directly to that other tenant without a probate. So a lot of, as I said, married people will take title as joint tenants but they do want to talk to their attorney about that. Then we have tenants in common is ownership, 50-50. You could have two people, you could have four people. You can have a multitude of people. That would make it pretty, that'd be tough for a title company to try to figure that out. But you might see that in families after the parents have passed away and maybe the kids take ownership as tenants in common and then they each have their ownership in it and if someone passes away, let's say it's a husband and wife and tenants is in common. One of them passes away and they're in tenants in common, that person has 50% of the estate. And so then that estate part would then look at his errors and how we would finish that doing that transaction. You'd have 50% of ownership for the one person that's still alive and 50% in the estate. Got it. So it's up to, if it's tenants in common, it's up to that person who gets it when they pass. It's not really automatically gonna go to the joint tenant in the other type of holding. Tenants in common, right, is two tenants. Two separate ones, okay. I think I'll follow that. So what about, can you talk about different types of deeds? So are you, you're talking about like warranty deeds? Yes, special warranty versus general warranty versus estate deed, like aren't there a few different types of PRD you'd have to have. If we have a death, we're gonna ask for the personal representative's deed to transfer title. Again, we're walking a thin line because we wanna make sure that we're getting legal advice on all of this. And we know that realtors, we can advise, you can advise, but they need to go get legal advice on do I use a general warranty deed or do we wanna use a special warranty deed? Again, there's many other deeds out there that they can look at using, but a lot of them boil down to being just quick-claimed deeds. Okay, so your general warranty deed and your special warranty deed have some warranties in them. And then once we get past that, it's pretty much just quick-claimed deeds with names. Well, the PRD would be too. But we're passing title from the death of someone. Okay, got it. So quit, claim, quit, not quick. Q-U-I-T, Q-U-I-T. Those are the most common that you're using usually on like a day-to-day basis. You're writing a lot of quit, claim, deeds. No, we don't. So let me make that clear. Please. Title insurance companies do not really want to put together a quick-claimed deed for anyone because that quick-claimed deed, if you're adding someone to title, you're actually adding any baggage that person has. So for instance, if a single woman wants to add her boyfriend and she is unaware that the boyfriend has got a tax lien against him, has a judgment against him, the minute she adds him to title, those things are gonna, they're gonna attach to the property. And if she and he decide to sell the property, then we've got to clean up that title work in order to make sure the buyer has a home that's free and clear so that they can put their first lien on, for their mortgage on it. But quick-claimed deeds, I would say that they need to talk to their attorney. Sure, I'm sorry. I'm more meant that they're most commonly used to change ownership. Oh, yes, yes, yes, sorry. And you're saying that you guys really don't generate them? We don't, no, we will if we had, if we did the closing, and we, this just happened. I had a gal call me from out of state and she owns a property here in Longmont. And she said, my mother and I are on this deed and I wanna add my husband. And so we pulled the old file and we said what we'll do is we'll add him to the title policy. And so that's an additional insured. And so we, there's a charge of $250 to add someone to title like to their owner's policy because we're gonna first go see if he has anything out there that we need to take care of so that we can ensure that policy, keep them all insured. And so that worked out fine. We did the additional insured and we actually prepared the quick-claimed deed for her. So that was okay. But we're not gonna just, you can't just send your neighbor to us and say, hey, can you help Mrs. Jones here? She wants to add her dog onto title. I see, I understand. So pretty much all you're doing, you guys need to be looked at as an insurance company. You assist with the closing process and the transfer of title, but you are not attorneys. You don't claim to be legal advisors of any sort and you're just helping to facilitate that process. That's correct. Can we talk a little bit about that process of closing? Yes. I admit that as a realtor, I know that you hold earnest money in escrow and maybe you can help us explain what that means. And then you make a lot of things happen that to me in my world, I'll be honest, is kind of magic. And as long as the wire transfer goes through, the loan goes through, the inspection works out and the appraisal clears, like you guys do most of the heavy lifting come time for the actual closing. Can you talk about like what goes into closing and what that pile of documents is? So our job doesn't start really until we get the fully executed contract, right? So we're not really a party to the contract. We are just facilitating the transaction for everyone. So your sellers have signed closing instructions saying that Fidelity National Title is authorized to do our closing and that's how it all starts. And so once we get that fully executed contract and sometimes when we might receive earnest money before we get it, so we have to wait to get that contract in order to deposit that money. And that money goes into an escrow account and stays there. And I know some real estate companies even do their own, have their own, I think it's a trust account. But we have an account for that earnest money and then the ball starts rolling. We get a, we take that contract and we send it in to our title examiners who then put together our commitment to insure. And that's what realtors know as title commitment. And once that comes out, we see what things are against the property, what the history of the property is. It kind of tells the story of the home. And there are what's called requirements on that commitment. And those requirements are saying, we're committing to insure to the buyer if you can get all these requirements met. And those requirements typically are paying off the seller's mortgage. We're looking out there to see if there are any liens and judgments that we need to take care of. And that's not just against the seller, but also the buyer. If we find anything against the buyer, we're gonna ask that that be taken care of. And then as you go through the commitment, you're gonna see things that are our exceptions that show easements, rights of way, the covenants, a lot of information, good information for your buyers. So you're digging deep historically on the property, the seller and the buyer, and just gathering as much data as you possibly can to get that contracted by and sell to go through. Yes. And we're committing to the buyer that you're gonna own the property free and clear. That's the goal. That's basically it, yeah. And so that when they walk away, so something that I know we were maybe gonna talk about the state of Colorado is a good funds state. So that at the closing table, we don't have escrow like they have in several other states where the buyer comes in and signs, and then maybe three days later, the seller comes in and so the buyer actually doesn't get the home until the deed records. In Colorado, everything happens at the table and everybody walks away, the seller walks away with their money and the buyer walks away with the keys to the property. Oh, interesting, yes, I've heard this. So there are some states you're saying that are quote escrow states. And their process is a little different, but in Colorado we're a title state, which means all at once, same day, within the same three hours, assuming the funds are good. We are a good funds state. Okay, got it. That just closes all, hopefully all at the same time. Right, cool. Which isn't happening now, but it's okay. Typically they're closing in the same day. Sure, sure, sure, sure. So you mentioned title insurance policy and writing somebody into a policy and you also mentioned that when I have a policy in place, I'm protected from the past. Can you give us another example? I'm not super clear yet on what might someone come up with from my past or my property's past. That, you know, what would they take issue to and why would I need that protection and can you tell me more about what a policy of property insurance or of title insurance really looks like? Well, we all know that there's something called owner's extended coverage, right? And so with the owner's extended coverage, one of the things that it covers is survey matters. And let's just say that someone buys a property and we want an ILC done and the ILC gets done and they miss something. They miss that the fence is actually six foot off or three foot off and into the neighbor's property because it's just an ILC and they don't do, it's not a survey because a survey is much better surveying, you know, by the inches. In an ILC, they kind of maybe meet a pin and pin and draw a line and miss that three acres. Well, one day you wanna put a fence in and you think, well, maybe I'll just have a surveyor come out and take a look and the surveyor says, hey, you've got three foot too much or your neighbor's encroaching into your property and if you wanted to, you could call the title insurance company and actually have a claim for that if it came to that point, you know, if you and the neighbor couldn't work that out. So that's just one of the things. I mean, there's many things that can happen. It could be you had grandma and grandpa sitting at the table selling their property and their kids don't know that they sat down to sell the property and there might be some inkling of grandma and grandpa not quite being with it, but yet we're signing documents and the closing happens, the new buyer gets the house and a month later, the kids find out that grandma and grandpa sold the property and they know that they might not have been thinking while they were really signing documents. And that, you know, we would cover, I mean, that could be a possible claim that they were maybe not coerced, but signed documents that they really weren't fully aware of what they were doing. Got it, got it. Those are great examples and I really appreciate that because, you know, I know that what you do is title policy and I always tell my buyers, you absolutely need it. I just haven't been in your shoes when the rubber meets the road. Well, and, you know, we don't see a lot of claims. If we see claims, it's something, as I said, that did happen in the past and that goes directly to our, well, it'll go to a local, like our local title examiner, but if it's beyond that, then we send it to our attorneys and we don't really know what the result in result is. Sure, again, you're the facilitator, you're the sort of main street one-stop shop and then you inform the others. So can you talk about that? When you say we have our attorneys, they're not really in-house, but they're referrals and they're people you work closely with? They work for Fidelity. I see. Yeah, and they're in Omaha, Nebraska. Okay, okay. And as Fidelity, let's talk a little bit about that. You're in only Colorado or are you in multiple states? We're actually nationwide. And as I said, we are the nation's largest title insurance company. Yes, okay, I can remember if you had presence in all 50 states or not. I think everything but Texas. Wow, I'm just joking. Okay, so you're one of the biggest. You guys are, when you say the 1.8, can you revisit that? I was gonna ask you what sets you apart from the other title insurance. Oh, the claims reserve? Yeah. You know, and I don't know what our, you know me, I don't talk about our competitors. Our competitors, as far as I know, have about, their claims reserve are about half as much as ours are. I see. So Fidelity National Title is our underwriter and they also underwrite other agencies per se, I guess. You could, we can underwrite at one time, there was a company called Golden Dog Title. Oh yeah. And Fidelity National underwrote them. And then we underwrite Heritage, we underwrite Chicago. So there's a lot of bigger title companies that we also underwrite. Gotcha. So we're a large company. We're a Fortune 500 company. And the claims reserves would be rightly so when you're that big. Gotcha, I appreciate that explanation. My last question really is just what's this hot, buzzy topic right now, which is wire fraud. I wanted to ask you about wiring money, good funds, and what is wire fraud? I know it's something that title companies are really, they're very stringent about making sure that people are aware of it so that their money doesn't disappear. And there's always the old adage, don't show up to your closing with a suitcase full of cash, bring your license. There are certain etiquette things that we as realtors also try to educate on. But can you talk about how to wire a loan, how to fund a deal, how to actually make all that happen in a good timely fashion, make sure it's good funds and how do you avoid, God forbid, wiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to the wrong place. Well, what it really boils down to is communication from the seller to his closer. And really that's what it is on the day of closing or the day before closing, and it's a phone call. Because, and really some closers prefer to get wiring instructions from the seller at the table. Sure. They don't want it in an email, they don't want, if anyone ever receives an email from what appears to be the closer, that is fraudulent. We're never gonna call your client and say, we're changing banks, so we need you to send us your wiring instructions to this email address. That is never gonna happen with your closer. So I would say that the safest thing is if you do receive something in the way of an email or even a phone call, I can't imagine a phone call, you would call us and ask for your closer and communicate with your closer, and that will stop anything from happening right then and there. So we're not gonna get your wiring instructions until either the day before closing or at the table. Okay, 700 attempts. Oh yeah. Every day. Yeah, yeah, it's scary. I mean, we're in that industry. Yeah. Millions of dollars coming out. Yeah, I guess it only takes one. Well, Dana, you've been a wealth of knowledge. You've been such a delight to have on. I know I learned some things, so I'm sure that my clients have as well. I really appreciate your time. Thank you, Sarah. That's the property.