This may be of little interest to most of you.  Dower is only recognized by about half a dozen states; Ohio is one of them.  To briefly explain the concept of dower, it is a one-third life estate interest that a spouse has in the real property of the other.  It is for this very important reason that all conveyances of interests in real property include the marital status of the grantor, along with a release of dower by the spouse if the grantor is married.  This is so even if the property is only in the name of the grantor.

There are usually only two ways to extinguish dower, aside from the spouse signing away dower rights by joining in the execution of the grant document by the title-holding spouse.  Those would be divorce and death.  However, there is another little known statute that can extinguish dower - I'm blogging about this today because I have never seen it used and until very recently, I was unaware of it.  By statute in Ohio, adultery can be a bar to dower.

Typically at the end of a year, I write a blog about what we have seen change over the past year.  This year, however, I thought I would write about a few things that I think we might see coming in the year ahead.  I don't have a crystal ball, and I could certainly be wrong... but why not take a stab at predicting the title issues we will see forthcoming?

Two competing federal bills were introduced to regulate private transfer fee covenants.  One protects homeowners, and one protects greedy Wall Street profiteers.  Both seek to amend the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act to accomplish their goals. 

Last year, I wrote a blog about The North Jersey Practice.  It was about an appellate case that held that an underwriter was responsible for an attorney's theft of funds - even though the attorney sole his client's money before the title company got involved. I wrote at the time, "I would expect a reversal on appeal."  And I was right...