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Every fourth Sunday, Regana Kooman-Henry discusses various aspects of the home buying process and home ownership experience.
Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming brought to you by Regatta. kumin. Henry of Coldwell Banker Premier Realty. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Regana Kooman Henry 0:32
Welcome to the Southern Nevada real estate Show. I'm your host Regatta, and today I have a very special guest, Ryan Pulliam, a manager with Ticor title company. Welcome, Ryan.
Unknown Speaker 0:46
Regatta. Thank you so very much for having me today. I'm excited to chat with you a little bit.
Regana Kooman Henry 0:50
It's great to have you on my show, Ryan. Now, Brian, for the listeners out there. What steps does the title company take for real estate transactions.
Unknown Speaker 0:59
So as you said, I work with Ticor Title Company of Nevada. And we operate in two functions in a real estate transaction. One is the escrow portion which we facilitate as a neutral third party that handles the transaction. We take all the information that were given to us in the contract, we make sure everybody who's supposed to pay for things pays for things. Everybody who's supposed to get paid is paid, we record all the documents. And then on the also on the other end, as a title insurance company where we issue a owners policy of title insurance to ensure that the new buyer has clear and equitable title. And if there's a lender involved will also issue a lender policy of title insurance, ensuring that the lender is in first transit, excuse me first position on the property.
Regana Kooman Henry 1:41
That's wonderful of information, Orion, and Ryan, what are the limitations of title companies?
Unknown Speaker 1:49
What we can only act upon written instructions. So if you call us and say, Hey, can you do this? Or can you do that we're not actually able to do it, we need to make sure that all parties involved agree upon any changes to the contract. So those have to be in writing. And again, when we're bringing in a lot of money. So oftentimes, people have either legal or tax advice. And we cannot give either of those, we do not practice law, we just operate as that neutral third party.
Regana Kooman Henry 2:14
And Ryan, do you have to have a title company for a real estate transaction.
Unknown Speaker 2:21
It really all depends on the parties. If it is a cash transaction, where maybe an uncle is selling to a nephew or somebody families are involved, they can most likely handle that outside of escrow. However, if there is a lender involved, the lender is going to want to ensure that it is handled through a reputable shop, and any policy of title insurance is issued.
Regana Kooman Henry 2:41
Okay? And what is a escrow officer? And what do they do, as part of the real estate transaction
Unknown Speaker 2:50
regarding the escrow officers that I have the opportunity to work with, the only word that I can think of to describe them are superheroes, they are just somebody who is involved from the beginning to the end of the transaction, they get instructed through all parties, they, they have to make sure that everything is paid for, they do the preparations, meaning that if a buyer comes in and says, Hey, listen, I'm going to take property on the 15th of the month, the escrow officer has to ensure that the the they're only paying for the time of the property that they they occupy the property. So they have so much involved in the transaction that they really do it all. And everything has to funnel through them in order for the transaction to be closed. So again, in my eyes, they're a superhero.
Regana Kooman Henry 3:34
Okay, what does come Rand, what does community property state mean?
Unknown Speaker 3:40
So Nevada is a community property state, I think we're one of either nine or 11 states in the US that is a community property state. Legally speaking, community property is defined that all assets are split equally, if and when there is a divorce. But again, we don't necessarily look at that as legally we want to make sure that community property to us is for the issuance of title insurance, meaning that anybody who may have a community property interest in the property has deeded off their their vested interest as well as any financial interest in the property they may have.
Regana Kooman Henry 4:13
That's good to know, Ryan and ran what happens in a real estate transaction. For example, if a seller purchased a home before he or she was married, and the seller is now selling the home years later after he or she got married, Ryan,
Unknown Speaker 4:32
it's a great question and it comes up more often than not, again, any property that's brought into a marriage is considered separate property. But again, you know, we don't like to answer that legally. Because again, we don't provide any legal advice whatsoever. But in issuance of title insurance, we need to make sure that the the spouse who is not on title does actually deed off their rights because, again, community property may mean although the maybe the husband acquired the property Prior to marrying the wife, they had a joint bank account both of their salaries or monthly earnings were going into the bank account, that bank account was used to pay the mortgage, it was paid to upkeep the property, maybe it was an it was used to provide upgrades to the property. And if that's being done, then that spouse who's not on title can have a claim to say, Hey, listen, I was in the property for eight years, half of my money was going to it, I should have some some right to the property. So again, not giving a legal advice on what it means but just simply by issuing a policy of title insurance to to make sure there's not any claims that are happening on the property, we would need to make sure that both parties did sign off.
Regana Kooman Henry 5:41
And that is really good information for someone that is married to know about. And Ryan, what is the most common way for a married couple to take title.
Unknown Speaker 5:55
So when we have a married couple come in, most often than not, it is husband wife has joint tenants. Sometimes there'll be a little bit of an addition, husband and wife has joint tenants with rights of survivorship. joint tenancy is important because regarding if you can think back to when you went to real estate school, joint tenancy, you knew the severability of the property. If there's joint tenants on the property, then both parties have to deed off. Also, it protects against if heaven forbid, something happened to to one of the spouses, the other spouse would maintain the property if they were invested husband and wife as joint tenants.
Regana Kooman Henry 6:30
Okay, that's good to know. Okay, so we know about married couple how to take title, what is the most common way for a single person to take title Ryan,
Unknown Speaker 6:40
it's funny because it kind of gets into semantics. If a man or a woman has never been married, they typically take title as a single man, woman, individual person. However, they instruct us to vest them if they have been married before, and they're since not married any longer. So maybe somebody has been divorced before, and then purchases a property afterwards, they are vested as an unmarried man, unmarried woman, an unmarried person. So that's typically how single or unmarried people will take title.
Regana Kooman Henry 7:08
Okay, that's good to know. Also, Ryan, no Ryan does tycker title company accommodate putting together a power of attorney if a buyer, let's say can't be present for signing the final closing papers, Ryan.
Unknown Speaker 7:22
Now, if we're instructed to do so then yes, and it is a part of a transaction that we're handling. Again, going back to how we cannot practice law. If we prepare documents that aren't a party to the transaction, that's typically practicing law without a license. So we tend to steer away from those a power of attorney obviously grants someone the ability to sign for on behalf of another individual who may not be able to be present. So for us to approve or power of attorney, our underwriter would need to approve it are the if there's a lender involved, the lender would need to approve it. And we would just want to make sure there's some valid reason why an individual couldn't come in to sign the documents. Again, with us issuing the the insurance policy, we would want to make sure that everybody who's supposed to sign any documents are there in our office or with an approved notary, to sign those documents. If people are signing via Power of Attorney. Sometimes we just don't know for sure if that was the intent. So we typically like to prepare a specific power of attorney specific to the property that we have in in escrow. And again, there needs to be some reason that the individual can't come to the signing, maybe it's they're serving in the military overseas, by all means that would be a valid reason. But with the advancement of technology, our parent company has invested a large amount of money in a program called we call it Ron remote online notary. The State of Nevada is one of the states that has approved a Ron notary or remote online notary. And that's when individuals can actually sign documents via a secure portal, as long as they are a US citizen and have at least three years of credit history. They can assign, they can sign documents and have it notarized electronically. And so that would sometimes negate the reason to have a power of attorney drawn up. And again, we want to make sure the people who are either encumbering property or signing off on property are the ones who are actually the parties involved.
Regana Kooman Henry 9:15
Okay, that's good to know. And that sounds very convenient when someone can actually be in front of a notary. For people that haven't purchased a home before Ryan, us as Realtors we know what a preliminary title report is, but can you expand on what a preliminary title report is for the listeners that maybe have not purchased a home before?
Unknown Speaker 9:36
Yeah, the prelim is is kind of what we consider our roadmap into closing the transaction. And it's fascinating the way it's generated. So what will happen is, we're going to when you open up escrow with Ticor title company, your escrow officer will order a we call it a prelim with a preliminary title report. So, our title department will search out what we call the chain of title, and that is everything that's ever been recorded or affecting that title for In the very, very beginning to win the government, deeded it to the first owner. So we take a look at that chain all the way from when it was deeded from the government up into what we call our plant date, which is typically about two weeks behind what our actual date is. And what will happen is our examiner's will then determine by looking at that chain of title, what is still affecting title, the things that will still affect title obviously, are our taxes, you're not going to get away from paying property taxes there, if there's easements on the property, meaning that there's a dedicated use of portion a portion of the land to to benefit another individual, if they're CCN ours on the property. And then also if there's any mortgages, liens or judgments against either the property or the individuals as well. So it gives you everything that's going on with the property, they'll it'll it'll and again, provides us a little bit of our roadmap on what all we need to do in order to provide that policy of title insurance and close the escrow.
Regana Kooman Henry 10:54
Okay, that's good to know. And Ryan, for the listeners that maybe haven't purchased a home or haven't purchased a home or sold a home in a long time. What is a lien summary can tell the listeners.
Unknown Speaker 11:05
So a lien summary is if you don't want to look at all 18 or 24 pages of preliminary title report, you know, if you don't have trouble falling asleep at night, and you don't have to read a prelim to try to get you there. A lien summary is a quick snapshot of just what liens are affecting title. So uh, liens or encumbrances? So what we'll do on that it's a truncated version. Typically, it's one, maybe two pages depending on how much is actually recorded on the property. It'll show you who the vested owners is or our meaning who owns the property who we show entitles them on the property. It will also show if there's any mortgages on the property if they are in default, or if they're behind on their payments. Also with a homeowner's association liens, mechanic's liens, Republic, service liens, sewer liens, anytime they're not paying any, any of those utilities, though, they those utilities have the ability to actually lien the property. And then we also what we call a general index search, meaning we search out the individuals names, and that way we can determine if there's an IRS lien or a child support judgment, anything that may financially affect the property is what a lien summary report will show. And we generate those typically, you know, on a daily basis, and we can provide those to real estate professionals, specifically, so you all can understand what's actually affecting title before we you go on a listing appointment, or open up escrow.
Regana Kooman Henry 12:22
Right now, what kind of title related issues do you encounter, for example, with inherited property that is being sold? And do you have some examples,
Unknown Speaker 12:32
the biggest issue that we have regarding it is when we look back to the vesting when we talked about when people are joint tenants, if somebody unfortunately passes away, that surviving joint tenant is able to keep keep the property at RIT. And they maintain the property. If the individual is on title as an unmarried man or woman or person or single man, we're married person, where even if they don't, even if they are married, but they're vested a married man, sole and separate property, then that that property has to go to probate. The people think that okay, well, I'm married, it's community property or my will states that I get the property. That is all well and good. Again, we don't practice law, we insure the policy of title insurance. So it needs to be go through probate and a probate judge has to approve the sale, one of the most recent phenomenon that we've seen last few years is what we call a deed upon death, meaning that if maybe, you know, I'm kind of getting up there in age, and I want to make sure that my son is he's kind of helping me out with a paperwork, I will record a deed upon death, meaning I record the deed on the property, and it takes effect after I actually pass away. So the moment I pass away, that deed takes effect and the son takes title. But what we found is that even though one heir may have been designated to help out with the day to day or the paperwork, there are other heirs involved, and we don't want anybody to come and make a claim about the property. So we've changed our underwriting guidelines when it comes to deed upon death. And now the the sale has to be published, much like a foreclosure. And that way, anybody who has any interest whatsoever in the property will have a right to come forward and say, Listen, I have a right to the property, I don't approve the sale and go from there. Because what we found, again, was one air may have been designated as the individual but not necessarily get all of the proceeds. And that's when again, it would have to go and all parties involved would have to to deed off. So those are the issues that we're having recently if if a property is in a trust, that's very easy, because the trust actually owns the property and other successor trustees involved in that that's where we don't have any issues. It's it's when people are vested as individuals and or deed upon death. Those are when people when they pass away, that's when we have the most issues.
Regana Kooman Henry 14:49
Okay, and that's good to know for people that might may be experiencing something like that right now. Now, Ryan, what type of HOA related issues do you encounter with sellers.
Unknown Speaker 15:02
So the homeowners associations have the right to lien a property. And typically, that's the biggest thing that we see when it comes to homeowners association. So right now majority of the, the, the equity and properties are able to take care of and pay the homeowners association liens off through escrow sometimes there you have the ability to foreclose, and that causes the timeline to go a little bit quicker. But speaking of timelines, the biggest issue that we have with HOAs our homeowners associations are, we want to make sure that we are recording and closing escrow on the most current and recent documents. So we can order a homeowner's association demand, meaning we contact the homeowners association, they tell us how much is owed on the property, what the monthly dues are, if there's any transfer fees involved, and we have to go ahead and close on that. But it's the timing issue, because the demands typically expire after 30 days. But at the same time by Nevada revised statute, the homeowners association management company has 10 business days to get as the demand. So it's a it's a very fine line that we walk to be able to order the demand in time for it to be valid when we close, but not wait too long to order it. And we're not able to, we have to go past close of escrow, because we have not received the homeowners association demand yet. So those are the biggest issues that we have with HOAs.
Regana Kooman Henry 16:22
Okay, Ryan, what type of tax issues do you encounter with buyers and sellers? And do you have some examples, Ryan?
Unknown Speaker 16:31
So the tax issues again, when we're working with a buyer, most of the time those tax issues are uncovered when they're applying for the loan. And if there's a big IRS lien against somebody, odds are they're not going to get approved for the loan, we do see a lot of times on the sellers hand, and the examples that we see for the IRS is somebody knows they owe $75,000, to the IRS. And they think okay, I know I have $150,000 in equity in my home, but I want to sell that and access it but I don't want to pay the IRS. So they will deed the property to a friend or family member, a son or daughter whatever the case may be, and think that that person can sell the property, get the proceeds and then give it to the individual, the previous owner. What we do, kind of going back to when we search out that prelim is we will identify what we call a non insured deep meaning that it did not go through a title company. It wasn't a bona fide arm's length transaction that went through a title company. So it wasn't insured. It was just me going down recording a deed to a new individual. When that happens, we will take a look at who the other party was who the seller or grantor was on that previous deed, we'll need them to sign a validity statement. But we'll also do a GI search on their name. And that's most likely, most likely the time that those IRS liens pop up. And that could actually stop the deal from happening. If there's either not enough proceeds to pay off the IRS lien or is simply the IRS takes a little bit of time. I know that may shock you regarding it that a government agency may take a little bit of time to get us the information back. But the IRS is notorious about being slow to give us the path demands when we request them for IRS liens.
Regana Kooman Henry 18:10
Wow, that's that's really wonderful information for people that may be going through some tax issues. Also, how does the title company handle mistakes found on the title report?
Unknown Speaker 18:22
Well, hopefully we handle it quickly. So we don't, we don't slow down the closing of the transaction. But mistakes do happen. And that is when we kind of had just have a gentlemen's agreement. All the title companies in town worked very closely with one another to ensure that if there was an escrow again, an insured transaction that paid off a deed of trust, and that deed of trust is still showing on title, then what we do is we just ask for an indemnification say, Hey, listen, XYZ title will you indemnify us against loss if we record on it. And again, that gentleman's agreement typically works and we get that indemnification from the the other title company and we're able to close Sometimes though, deeds are recorded with just incorrect legal descriptions. And we will reach out to whatever company recorded that that deed and then work with them to get it corrected, so it doesn't hold up our closing. So again, we have that gentleman's agreement and all the companies in town work pretty well together in that regard.
Regana Kooman Henry 19:14
Okay, very good information. Ryan and Ryan, if a seller is married, can one spouse sell a home without the other spouses signatures? Right?
Unknown Speaker 19:25
So they're on title together at No, who's ever on title will have to be the people who sell to convey to convey property. Again, going back to our example is if someone's a married man, a sole and separate property, and the wife has already cheated off through an insured transaction. Our underwriters may look at that and say, Yeah, we could just go ahead and have the one party deed off. But again, going back to our community property rights, we just want to make sure that that wife is still okay with a if there's a number of proceeds, especially if they're not married anymore, that can cause an issue because that that joint bank account again may have been used to pay for the mortgage. So those are kind of on a case by case basis. And unfortunately, when sometimes people come in, again, using that example, prior that I purchased the property before I was married, and since I've been married, sometimes they come in and won't say that they're married, they'll be, you know, they'll not be honest with us, if they don't tell us that they're married. We really have no way of knowing but that's the good thing about providing title insurance and your your buyers and sellers getting title insurance is that they're protected against any loss that they may have. Because of community interest rates not being deeded off or fraudulent deeds.
Regana Kooman Henry 20:34
Good to know Ryan, Ryan, what if a buyer is married can one spouse purchase without the other spouse,
Unknown Speaker 20:42
they can't if they're paying in cash, because when we have cash buyers that come in the cash buyer will say this is how we want to be vested, they instruct us on vesting, and they can take title as however they want to be vested. However, it will cause an issue when they go to sell the property. Because, again, going back to the previous question, both spouses or both individuals will need a deed off at some point in order to convey title. So when when there's no lender involved, somebody comes in with cash, they can pretty much do whatever they want to do. In order to do that, if there is, if there's a lender involved, they are going to want to make sure that if only one person is going to be on title, sometimes the actual the lender requires it that they only can lend money to one of the spouses. So they will require us to insure it as Ryan pulling the married man sole and separate property, and they will have the spouse deed off at closing. And that is one of the conditions of them funding the loan. So yes, they can do it. If they do it through a transaction all is well and good. If they do it and don't tell the spouse about it. They can do it however, it's going to cause an issue later on.
Regana Kooman Henry 21:45
Good to know Ryan and Ryan, final question. And if we had more time, I know you'd have several stories. But Ryan, what is the most interesting title related situation that you or your coworkers have ever dealt with?
Unknown Speaker 22:01
Regarding you're absolutely correct, I could probably fill at least a half an hour talking about a lot of the fraud that we're seeing as of late. But one story kind of sticks out because it was so quintessentially a Las Vegas story, we had a gentleman come in and say that he had lost a vacant piece of land that he owned in a poker match. So he put up the the vacant piece of property, then went back and forth. And, and you know how those, those poker matches can get those poker games can get. And he ended up losing the property. And I think they valued the loss at I want to say maybe 75,000 $50,000, she was some kind of a lower amount, the property was probably worth a lot more than that. But they came in and said I need to deed this property to this buyer. And that's that's the way it is. So we went ahead and facilitated the transaction. We when we but when we went down to record it, the county, who has a what's called a real property transfer tax. The county says that listen, this, we're we're thinking that this piece of land is worth far more than what you're selling it as, so we can't have you. We can't have you just pay transfer tax on the lower amount, we need the transfer tax on the higher amount, I think it was upwards of like $8,000 of transfer tax. So they went and that should have been a red flag for us right away. But they went I think they had trouble finding the $8,000. So I thought, you know, hey, it's weird that they're able to do all this. And they don't even have $8,000 to do the transfer tax. But lo and behold, they got it, we record it on the property, we disperse the money to the to the new buyer, because if there was any money that was leftover, because again, we did it as that amount of money. And we were all we're all well and good. We went on about our day, we sent out the final settlement statements as we typically do. And then about five days later, we had a gentleman come into our office and say, Listen, I received this letter from you all about the sale of a piece of land here in Clark County. And I didn't sell this land. So obviously our hearts dropped because we thought oh my gosh, we just insured on a fraudulent transaction. We called the escrow officer who handled the transaction to kind of get an idea of what transpired. Was there anything weird on it, kind of give us give us the backstory on it. And she said, Oh my gosh, you aren't going to believe this. But the buyers are in my lobby right now. They want to open up a refinance transaction with a hard money lender. They're trying to take out I want to say like 50 or $75,000. They, they were trying to take out money of the equity in the vacant piece of land. So we knew at that point that there was something shady about it. We didn't know if the buyer was was in on it at the time. So we said Okay, keep going with the transaction. We're going to figure it out. We went they prepared all the documents the lender came in the lender funded the money that they were going to take out when the buyers came in to sign we had the we had Metro Police there. They were arrested for a fraudulent transaction. They were straw buyers, they fraudulently bought the property before somebody who was promised them 20 $5,000 in order for them to do this, so they went to jail, the person who perpetrated the fraud went to jail. And it taught us a good lesson that it was great when we sent the letter out after the close of Escrow to the parties that were involved. So we started sending out the letter at the beginning of the escrow. And we've actually been able to catch one fraudulent transaction because of that, where we sent out a letter saying, hey, you know, we're looking forward to handle the sale of your property. And the guy called and said, Listen, I got this letter from you, I am not selling, selling this property. And fortunately, that one wasn't, that one wasn't recorded, we didn't have to unwind the sale and go from there. But we're gonna again, it is amazing what these villains will try to do. And, again, we could probably fill a 30 minute show just on that.
Regana Kooman Henry 25:41
I know it's a scary stuff over there. But least they caught on that was good to get to know that they didn't get away with it on that particular story that you told. Ryan, thank you so much for being on my show today. And please say your name, company name and your phone number tries for the listeners.
Unknown Speaker 26:02
We're going to thank you so much. It was an absolute pleasure sharing a little bit of time with you this morning. And again, my name is Ryan Pulliam with Ticor title company, and you can reach me at 70252082410. Once again, that's 702-528-2410
Regana Kooman Henry 26:17
Thank you so much for being on my show Ryan. And I am regatta kumin. Henry with Coldwell Banker, Premier Realty, your hosts for the Southern Nevada real estate show that airs every fourth Sunday of the month at 7:30am. My direct number is 702-596-1267 that 702-596-1267 And my license number is b s 27880. Thank you so much for listening to my show today. And I wish everyone listening, a great Sunday and a great Week.
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