Title examiner from Chicago Land Title calls today wanting to order an ILC (aka mortgage survey) stating that the new ALTA Specs are too rigid and the five estimates they received on a 2 acre commercial site was too high and that underwriting has waived the ALTA requirement and wants an ILC instead.
Go figure -
We are going nowhere fast
What a slippery slope we are on
It just shows how desperate the underwriters (lawyers) are getting. They’ll probably pocket most of the difference between an ALTA and an ILC. What they are doing is definitely not ethical and may be illegal. They’re rolling the dice that nothing happens, but this type of “Risk Management” will ultimately come back to haunt them.
An ILC is NOT a mortgage survey.
Clients get to choose what product they deem necessary, no matter how hard we try to tell them otherwise. Here in Texas, we have raised the bar so high, that the governor has decided we are no longer necessary. We may re-emerge elsewhere, but I'm afraid we have for ever lost our ability to regulate ourselves. Surveyors made too many self serving decisions. The mouse can only tweak the nose of the lion so many times before he gets swatted. I may be wrong, but from the posts I've read here, the same is going on in Florida. Let us be a lesson for other surveyors in other states; don't over regulate your product to the point no one wants it. Costs do matter!!
Title examiner from Chicago Land Title calls today wanting to order an ILC (aka mortgage survey) stating that the lender thinks that the new ALTA Specs are too rigid and the five estimates they received on a 2 acre commercial site was too high and that underwriting has waived the ALTA requirement and wants an ILC instead.
In my opinion, what I added above in red/bold was what they were really saying...
I am very familiar with the 2005 and 2011 standards. In my opinion, they are not any more rigid to us surveyors. They now put the burden of the research on the title companies (which they already do and have) and eliminate the lenders' requirement of using their ridiculous certifications.
I had a lender's certification come across my desk last week that each and every line that they wanted me to certify to was specifically stated in the ALTA standards or Table A. It was like they pulled language out of the standards and made a bullet point list of items to certify to.
I just hope that the title companies aren't perceived as the bad guys in this, because I believe they are stuck in the middle.
The Lender
Bingo.
Since the mid 2000's the lender's council has run the show on commercial settlements around here. Title companies are in the same boat as surveyors, an incredibly small portion (fiscally) of the transaction with no clout.
I've been copied on the email chains for dozens of large commercial transactions (nine figures) where the lender's council just marks up the commitment and sends it back to the title company telling them what they'll accept and what they won't.
If the ALTA survey standards are going to work heading into the future, somehow the lender's need to be brought to the table. The lender has become the end user and for ALTA and ACSM to sit around and decide on the standards is kind of pointless.
As an aside, I don't really care if they standards work because I have grown to hate the idea of the ALTA/ACSM standards in principle. I'm a big boy and I can sit down with my clients, discuss their needs and come up with a product that fits those needs and leaves me comfortable with my liability exposure all by myself. I find the concept that a "national" professional organization feels the need to negotiate my contract terms for me insulting and paternalistic.
> An ILC is NOT a mortgage survey.
RFB,
Can you elaborate? What is a mortgage survey and what is the difference between it and an ILC?
In Florida...
If you call it a survey (in Fla., for now anyway) it must meet MTS.
An ILC doesn't meet MTS.
:coffee:
Some states do not allow half ass surveys. In those states a "mortgage survey" is an actual survey that shows the improvements on a lot. In states that do allow a half ass survey, the term mortgage survey and ILC (or whatever the legally defined state term is) are interchangeable.
I thought ILC's showed the improvements on the lot.
I know I should know this and have seen it before, but what is MTS? edit: oh wait....'Minimum Technical Standards'?
An ILC doesn't require monuments to be found or set.
> An ILC doesn't require monuments to be found or set.
Surveying is so much easier without concern for those pesky property lines!
:-O
Bingo!
Thank You!
I think this has been a problem for a long time. You just brought me back into reality.
The Lender
I'm confused...
It doesn't seem to me like the 2011 standards are significantly different than the 2005, except for the requirement for the certification. But whenever I've gotten "custom certifications" in the past, they've pretty much always been nothing but a restatement of the standard certification. So it doesn't seem like that's a significant change...
I don't get how the 2005 standards are fine, but the 2011 are "too rigid". Unless the lenders are just pouting about no longer being able to force us to put those inane verbose custom certifications on the drawing.
The Lender
> I'm confused...
> I don't get how the 2005 standards are fine, but the 2011 are "too rigid". Unless the lenders are just pouting about no longer being able to force us to put those inane verbose custom certifications on the drawing.
I don't think that you are confused. I think you have put your thumb on it. Those custom certifications were bread and butter for the lawyers.
