Also, the lender is only buying title insurance to cover the outstanding balance on the mortgage. If your home appreciates 30%, the lender still only could get the outstanding balance (which should decrease over time). But your equity could increase quite a bit. |
Of course it's worth the cost to THEM. Because YOU'RE paying for it for them. They make you pay for THEIR title insurance. I just bought a house with all cash the other day. Because I paid all cash, there was no lender requiring that I buy lender's title insurance. The question was do I buy owner's title insurance for me. I declined. Another poster said it's cheap -- it isn't. I'd rather take the risk and litigate if there's a problem down the line. Chances are almost certain that they're won't be. |
For all the people quoting lender's use of title insurance as evidence of its value - we have to remember that the buyer pays for the lender's insurance. So they have absolutely no incentive to change this structure. If someone was paying the $4,000 plus for me to get title insurance, I'd never turn it down either.
Funnily enough my loan officer at the mortgage company said he is starting to see his customers turn down title insurance. The payouts are very rare and it's the title company attorney's pushing it on their clients because the attorney gets a commission from it. What's also galling is that buyers can get a lower rate if the seller of their property had previously purchased title insurance and it is only being updated for things that may have happened on the seller's watch. But the seller has to produce the actual paper copy and not an electronic version. |