Jack Van Loan in 2006/file photo
Sorry I’ve been too busy to post today, but it’s gratifying to see y’all having a high old time with this post from yesterday. Some other likely topics:
- FBI looked into suspected bomber Ahmad Rahami in 2014 — Important safety tip going forward: When a father tells you his son is a terrorist, take it seriously.
- Russians May Have Bombed Aid Convoy, Officials Say — First we hit Syrian troops, now the Russians do this. Too many wars going on in too small a space. Maybe the best way for us to have a successful cease-fire would be for all of us to follow Jimmy Carter’s suggestion and maybe, just for a bit, cease firing.
- Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems — But will Trump supporters care? Nope. They don’t care what this guy does…
- The GOP has become a pity party for white males — This from the Post‘s duty conservative, Jennifer Rubin. Boy, that one ought to hurt. I mean, aren’t we white males sort of the demographic that takes pride in the idea that we don’t do pity parties? You know, the rugged individualist, yadda-yadda? Well, maybe not…
- A Jack Van Loan statue is an awesome idea — The Five Points Association today broke ground on Centennial Plaza, which will feature a 6-foot rotating water feature and a bronze statue of my good friend Jack Van Loan, American hero and longtime godfather of Five Points. Excellent idea! I definitely want to be there for the unveiling.
- ‘Transformational’ Benedict president stepping down after 23 years — Major news. I actually don’t even remember the time before Dr. Swinton was at the helm at Benedict…
Related Posts
Biggest story of the day is the Wells Fargo scam. It’s unbelievable that people want LESS regulation!!!!! God help us if the Libertarians gain control.
Uh, bud, who exactly has been in control all this time?
Free markets would allow competition to weed out bad actors faster than regulation (controlled by lobbyists) ever could.
The system we have now is the product of Democrats and Republicans. Equally responsible, equally bought and paid for.
But we will never have free markets without perfect information. Without disclosure requirements, what options do any of us little people have besides a sock under the mattress?
Sorry, but regulations that force banks to send out documents that describe changes to rates, policies, terms, etc. in dense 4-point type filled with legalese doesn’t help the public out in any way. For every rule. there exists a loophole. Every law requires that financial institutions spend money to comply — that costs money which is then passed on to the consumer.
What specific regulations would fix the system?
“Sorry, but regulations that force banks to send out documents that describe changes to rates, policies, terms, etc. in dense 4-point type filled with legalese doesn’t help the public out in any way.”
In the limited context of what I do with residential real estate closings, I have to agree.
The stack of required documents at a closing is beyond ridiculous. It would take HOURS to read them all. What’s the point of all that documentation if it isn’t being read?
Don’t get me started on title insurance either – one of the biggest ripoffs ever concocted. How many claims have ever actually been filed and awarded as a percentage of the total number of policies written?
Not to pile on my attorney friends, but I’d like to do a survey. Maybe this should be a separate post…
Do any of y’all actually READ the Terms and Conditions attached to software updates, etc., before you click on AGREE so you can get the stupid thing done and move on?
I remember back in the ’90s, when I was first working with PCs, I would dutifully slog through those things, wondering what I was agreeing to.
I don’t think I’ve done so in a decade. Life is too short…
After Microsoft made “the terms of this agreement may change at any time without notification” standard boilerplate, I only bother reading the name of the license.
90% of the title insurance “premium” goes to the agent – which is 98 out of a hundred times, in a state such as SC which requires attorneys to transact RE closings, an affiliate of the attorney handling the closing for the buyer.
It’s about the least disclosed fact in a residential closing, I imagine.
Here in SC, the premium split is set by statute. The lawyer is not allowed to get more than 60%. (See S.C. Code Ann. 38-75-1000).
The rates are set by the title insurance companies and are filed with the Dept. of Insurance.
Title insurance is actually a good value. You pay a premium one time, and it insures your property permanently. Yeah, it’s pretty low-risk, but when you have a claim, it’s a big deal. It’s the ideal type of insurance: low probability of happening, but it when it does happen, it can be very expensive. I don’t have stats, but lawsuits that implicate title insurance happen all the time. I have two cases right now where a title insurance company is paying a lawyer to help resolve a claim.
Oh, and if you don’t want title insurance – don’t buy it. It’s not required. The only thing that’s required is a lender’s policy, and that’s only if you get a mortgage. Those are SUPER cheap, because it’s even less likely that a lender will need to make a title claim. I’ve done closings for folks who buy deeded parking spaces around Williams-Brice and they just skip the title insurance.
No one forces you to buy it.
If I buy a new home in an established neighborhood (as I did last year), the chance of my single lot having a title issue is what, 0.000000001%? The builder who owns all the 100+ lots in the neighborhood surely has had their legal team research the property’s title in depth.
Maybe there’s an error in the public records that isn’t discovered until later. Maybe there’s an inchoate mechanic’s lien out there. Maybe someone comes out of the woodwork and claims the deed to your developer (or several owners back) was a forgery, and the developer (or several owners back) never owned the property, and therefore never owned the property. Maybe there’s a boundary dispute. Who knows?
I consider it malpractice for a closing attorney to NOT recommend title insurance. But hey, it’s just a recommendation. Buy it or don’t buy it, it’s your property – not mine.
Yeah, I agree, Bryan. An OWNER’S policy, not the one the lender makes you buy. When the Catawbas claim your property, the title company will back you up…to eternity, which is how long you are on the hook with a warranty deed. More realistically, when the title search when you go to sell turns up some glitch, the title company will in all likelihood insure over the closing, so you close, and the whole string of closings that usually are dependent on one another can go forward. And when it’s a simultaneous issuance with a lender’s policy, the additional premium is peanuts.
–and I never made a dime from title insurance, for the record.
Doug,
Title to real property in this country is not like title to your car. There are lots of ways to acquire rights to real property besides buying it from the legal owner: lawsuits, adverse possession, doing work on the property and not getting paid for it, foreclosing on a security interest against the property, divorce, inheritance….There’s no piece of paper like a car title that represents ownership. It’s based on an opinion, based on what a title searcher found in the records. Mistakes are made, and when you go back far enough, you get legal descriptions like “from the rock to the old tree.” Someone (like a contractor) could have filed a lien against property owned by the developer that got missed or not quite properly discharged in the opinion of the next title searcher, and your sale gets held up. There could be an estate that wasn’t settled properly. (not to mention the law school/ bar exam insane, infant heir). Also, Native American tribes have made claims that have been upheld in courts.
All I’m asking for is some indication of the frequency of these policies actually being useful. If I buy a whole life insurance policy and keep up with the payments, my beneficiaries WILL collect one day sooner or later. If I buy an auto policy, I will likely make use of it once every 5-10 years. If I buy a homeowners policy, I might use it one in 30 years but it provides a lot more peace of mind.
When we talk about regulation, I think it would be helpful for consumers to know just how rare these policies are actually ever useful before paying for them. I know I was bilked on paying for title insurance that I likely didn’t need in my first home purchase 25 years ago. I don’t recall the mortgage broker or closing attorney saying it was optional.
Nice. I like how you’ve come full circle with “The stack of required documents at a closing is beyond ridiculous. It would take HOURS to read them all.” to now requesting an additional disclosure.
That’s all for today, folks.
I don’t want a document. I want the lawyer to say it is optional and explain what the potential risk is. Too bad that would require regulation to do.
The stacks of documents were created by lawyers, for lawyers to be necessary to interpret. What part of buying a home should require a lawyer? I’ve bought homes three times and refinanced a couple times. Each time, the got several hundred dollars for shuffling papers to be signed. There was no advice given. It was all boilerplate.
One of the first things our attorney advised was not only title insurance but a title search as well. Best money we ever spent. Our first house when we moved back to SC was from a family and the father was going to a religious university to become a minister. Under normal circumstances most people would not suspect anything and refuse a title search. The red flag was raised when we met with the attorney with the couple before the closing. He advised a title search and we agreed. The father was upset and wanted to know why and the attorney told him the reason why and in fact, he was their attorney. He was angry and adamant he was not going to pay for it and we told him we were paying. When we went to the closing, their attorney and the wife stepped outside the office and she had a stack of money to pay off a lien so the closing could take place. We then requested title insurance for the house just in case. FWIW – he lasted less than a year in preacher college.
When buying our present home, we went through the same process and the original owner had granted the neighbor living behind us right of way from the main road to their property and it was recorded at the courthouse. We had to go to the neighbor and process the paperwork to have the right of way rescinded. The neighbor agreed because she is a nice person but her children raised a fuss about and apparently wanted us to pay them for loss of the right of way. Needless to say, again a title search and title insurance is in place.
Better to pay the “$2.00” than take a risk that may or may not affect you but consider the consequences if after living in your home for years you find out you may have to give it up because a title search and title insurance were not in place.
Nate Silver’s current electoral college prediction might give some of those “Hillary will win in a landslide” people heartburn today.
Hillary Clinton 275
Donald Trump 263
Essentially it could come down to a single state small state. The hopes and dreams of the Democratic Party lie solely on Hillary coming out of her bed rest phase and performing with energy Monday night. Those 90 minutes could end her campaign.
Yeah, the race is certainly tightening.
This is from a Democrat in Ohio:
“But the Democrats here have not come back home. Instead, many of them are still looking to Trump.
“I’ve been a lifelong union guy, a working guy,” said Jeff Kulow, a 25-year member of the Teamsters who recently retired. “Can you imagine people like me going to Trump or going Republican?”
Kulow said President Obama, a politician “against everything I believe in,” has been the tipping point. He blamed a $650 increase in his health care premiums directly on the Affordable Care Act.
“They just don’t get it anymore with us,” Kulow said of the Democratic Party. “Maybe in an upscale area or downscale, maybe they’ll resonate. But around here — all working class and middle class, everyone has left the Democratic party. I can’t see myself ever going back.””
Kulow said President Obama, a politician “against everything I believe in,” has been the tipping point.
Not sure what “everything I believe in” entails but seriously Mr. Kulow Donald Trump is not the answer to the problems of the working and middle classes. He’s not some type of populist working for the little guy. He’s a narcissist with a long, long history of cheating people in the middle and working classes. He’s cheated taxpayers, banks, attorneys, small contractors, and even his own “charitable” foundation. And let’s not forget his first two wives. The Democrats may not have all the answers but Donald Trump is most assuredly for rich people named Trump, period. Mr. Kulow and others need to think about Mr. Trumps long history of lawsuits and out and out thievery before they consider casting a vote for this name calling bigot.
Middle class people vote with their pocketbooks. It’s has been and always will be about the economy and jobs. Everything is driven by jobs. Students take on massive debt in the hope of getting a job to pay the loans back. Jobs are continuing to head offshore. New jobs in this economy are centered around service related activities which offer little in the way of advancement. Some believe illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. Obama hasn’t delivered on making the middle class feel their jobs are safe.
And Obama’s “signature” legislation, Obamacare has been an unqualified failure that has done nothing to make health care more affordable and now access to insurance is becoming more and more limited because the idea of creating separate state exchanges was idiotic. It’s a plan designed by the government – i.e. inefficient, bloated, and only sustainable through the excessive power of the I.R.S. You don’t hear Hillary expounding on the virtues of Obamacare.
Obama was sold as a transformational President – a once in a generation change agent. He’s been nothing close to that. So now Americans are faced with Obama’s third term via Hillary and many people in the middle say, “Eh? Let’s try something different.”
I don’t think the state exchanges idea was what anyone specifically planned. It was a path required to reach a political compromise – on a national level. Why blame Obama for this Doug?
Despite what you say, the current healthcare system is empirically better than what was available to all before. Is it perfect? Of course not. Will it ever be? No again. Can it be improved and evolved? Absolutely.
Be a change agent, Doug. Push for incremental improvement. It’s easier now that the seismic shift has occurred. Help make our health care delivery/payment system better. Demonstrate leadership – and commitment to the cause.
Incremental? and empirically better? Eight years later and little positive has happened. Costs are not controlled. Co-pays and deductibles are soaring. Access to insurance for those without it is shrinking as insurance companies drop out of exchanges. The IRS is about to send threatening letters to 20 million people who decided to pay the fine instead of buying insurance. This is better? A poll of Americans would show a rejection of your view.
No seismic shift has occurred other than a seismic growth in the government bureaucracy.
There is an incremental solution that WOULD be better – a NATIONAL voluntary insurance plan. The same plan that Congress has. Open to all at the same cost – with two rates: Individual and Family. Any provider who accepts Medicare would have to accept it as well. Then we can work out how to provide subsidies to those who can’t afford the plan. Start by cutting foreign aid and military spending. Put Americans FiRST.
Doug, you’re onto something there, except for three things:
Again, other than those three things, you’re onto something.
You’re always setting up that false choice, asserting that we have to give up doing essential things in order to do anything else. No, we don’t. We’re the richest country in the world. We can do this.
“We’re the richest country in the world. We can do this.”
Of course. Because you believe there is no limit on how much we should tax people and believe our responsibility to the world exceeds our responsibility to those here in America.
We already have 20 million people who have decided to pay the fine rather than pay for insurance. That’s their choice. We also have the Obamacare loophole where people sign up right before they need surgery and then drop insurance after. The complexity of Obamacare results in inefficiency and fraud.
I’d be fine with an incremental change that raised the Medicare tax by a small percentage (from 2.9 to maybe 4) and dropped the age for enrollment to 50 or 55. Most healthcare spending occurs after that age anyway. Keep that for a decade and then see about dropping the age further. Over time, we’d end up with single payer.
But that will not happen because of lobbyists and the politicians who will do their bidding.
Now you are offering something…
Yes, he is. If only he and I held influential seats in Congress, we might be getting somewhere.
I must protest, though, that I do NOT believe “our responsibility to the world exceeds our responsibility to those here in America.” I just believe that we DO have responsibilities to the world — responsibilities that exceed those of other nations, because of the power that history has granted us.
We can’t walk away from that.
But I want something in return. I want some cuts in spending to offset the new taxes. That’s where we lose the current politicians (and Brad). If we had a balanced budget amendment, they’d have to make choices instead of taking on more debt.
In a perfect world, we’d fold the Medicare and Social Security taxes into a single income tax. That would force politicians to deal with tax rates collectively and apportion as necessary.
We wouldn’t take on more debt. Money people pay as premiums for private insurance now would be paid into the new federal system…
Doug there is always a simple solution to a complicated problem. In the case of health care you seem to have identified that simple solution. What we have with the ACA is certainly better than what we did have. Millions more are insured. Overall costs are rising more slowly than before. Not sure how a voluntary national health care initiative would insure more than the ACA. Without improving insurance coverage we really haven’t made any progress. As long as hospitals are required to treat people regardless of ability to pay we’re still stuck with the same issues circa pre-ACA. Let’s work to improve the current system not scrap it for something totally unworkable.
Obamacare is a failure. And it is heading down the tubes soon. Death spirals for exchanges and larger fines that were conveniently structured to kick in after Obama left office will make it even worse next year. It should be scrapped. Free markets drive down costs better than any government program.
Jack was a great guy, but Five Points would seem to have more pressing issues than a statue that one imagines some of their late night denizens might view as a trophy…
Jack still IS a great guy.
But I take your point about monuments and college students. I’m reminded of what the guys in “Animal House” did to the statue of their founder, Emil “Knowledge is Good” Faber…
An interesting almost-coincidence…
“Animal House” was filmed at the University of Oregon. Jack went to Oregon State…