Category Archives: Escrow

Content that relates to title insurance.

Real Estate Investor Tries to Defraud the IRS

IRS Liens & Over-Encumbered Property Foreclosures are just one of many challenges facing our country in this economic crisis. People are not only failing to pay their mortgages, but they have also fallen short on many other obligations. Paying taxes is one of them. It has become common for an IRS lien to appear on…

The trouble with a non arm’s-length short sale…

Non Arms Length Transaction

The Backstory An investor opened several short sale transactions, acting as the buyer in each. One–by–one the short sale transactions began to cancel for one reason or another, leaving the escrow branch disgusted with the amount of work they put into each one without remuneration. The next deal in line came extremely close to closing…

A Case of Brotherly Identity Theft…

Identity Theft

The case… This is a real estate fraud/identity theft case brought by plaintiffs Darryl Dumas (“Darryl”) and Darryl Dumas as Trustee of the Dumas Revocable Living Trust Agreement Dated February 7, 2001 against Darryl’s brother Derrick Dumas (“Derrick”), among others, concerning real property located at 1875 Paradise Drive, Los Angeles, Calif. 90025 (“Subject Property”). On…

Betrayed with an Uninsured Deed…

Beware of uninsured deeds.

An escrow officer in one of our sister operations opened a purchase transaction for $347,000. She ordered the title report and the order was assigned to Casandra, a commercial title officer. Casandra issued the report reflecting two owners of record: Maysa Alhelow, a single woman and Thomas Paul Helo, a married man as his sole…

Fake Short Pay Letters? True Story…

Short sale fraud

Leading the way. The FNF Family of Companies is the leader in the industry. Being the leader is not always easy. Many times we are the first ones who uncover the latest schemes and, as a result, issue a new policy and procedure. It is our settlement agents who are on the front lines implementing…