I have to completely agree with you Sunil, I mean I have worked for companies who are doing outsourced work for American companies including Title companies and my opinion in this regard is that companies in US outsource to get more profitability and also so that they can focus on their core services.

It is absolutely unfair to say that the work for title companies cannot or should not be outsourced in fact the whole transition of the processes is done in such a way that it doesn't look like the title companies are outsourcing.

Everything is planned in such a way that it looks like the company has opened just an extension of their office to another country. People working in the organization trains people in India so that they can perform work accurately and quickly. Either Senior people from India goes to US or someone from US comes to India to make sure that the training is done in a right way and all the state and federal laws are taught to Indians. Indians then make sure that they capture this knowledge and continue learning it.

They also work round the clock in India providing 24/7 access to title companies for tracking the status of their orders which usually doesn't happen in US. (24/7 access)

So all in all I think that outsourcing your title functions such as online search, commitment typing, payoffs, tax certs, post-closing audits, docs retrieval makes sense to Title companies in US so that they can make themselves profitable, focus on their core services, provide excellent customer service to their clients and add more value to their organization.

Thanks,

Varun Sharma

Sunil,

     I see you do not give up easily.  Even after your blog was taken down yesterday, you put it back up again today and even had a friend or employee (I might be so bold as to say both) to back you up.

     There are several points to consider.

First, jobs are being lost here in the US.  If American workers started taking jobs from India, I am sure that there would be screaming heard worldwide how the US is stripping jobs from another nation.

Second, if another country started accessing the property records of India, there would be another upcry from India how the US is stealing information.

Third, a good chunck of identity theft here in the US comes from overseas information gathering from on-line and bulk sales of our public records which were never intended to be released beyond the communities that the Recorder's Office serves.

Fourth, the offshored companies have no way of knowing the little problems, nuances, and extra attention that is needed except by those who visit the courthouse and know each computer system of that county.

So when it is posted by a company on a site that is mainly visited by abstractors, that it is willing to ship their jobs overseas, violate our public records and risk our citizens to identity theft, don't be surprised if it commented on with a certain amount of distain.

Jay

are quality and security.  First of all, an abstract report is only as good as the information used to compile it.  That is why my company never relies on online information to produce our searches.  Back in 2006, Ed Rybczynski wrote a very informative white paper, "Words of Advice for Anyone Who Cares to Listen," in which he highlights the unreliability of the information on the State of Maryland's public record website, MdLandRec.  Computerized records are only as accurate as the information entered.  As the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out."  A single typographical or indexing error can mean misplacing a crucial document.  I see it all the time in the course of my work.  Local abstractors, intimately familiar with custom and practice in the jurisdictions they serve, have the unique knowledge and skills required to ferret out these sometimes elusive items.

Secondly, how does an "abstractor" (and I use that term VERY loosely) over in "Crapistan" know which instrument relates to a given parcel or individual and which one doesn't?  Even though it is possible to create and store a digitized image in a database of every single instrument ever recorded in a given jurisdiction, indexing and cross-referencing every single one of those instruments would be a monumental task at best.  There's no way that someone sitting at a computer screen thousands of miles away (who has never set foot in a US courthouse) can possibly understand how these documents relate to one another.

It amazes me when I talk to other abstractors out here in the field, who seem willfully ignorant of the dangers of placing records online, at the expense of not only their own livelihoods and the integrity of the records, but of the security of the citizens served by the counties.  I actually had one abstractor tell me the she would rather have the convenience of being able to do a search from her home computer than have to travel to the courthouse!  Criminals are always looking for easier ways to access personal information and public record websites are a prime target.  With identity theft and real estate fraud at an all-time high, local citizens in their respective communities have the right to expect that their elected officials are taking reasonable steps to ensure the safety, security and integrity of the records relating to their most precious assets--their homes.

Forgive me for my skepticism, I don't believe that it is a good thing for US taxpayers to simply hand the keys to their courthouses over to individuals and entities who may or may not have their best interests at heart.

Regards,
Scott L. Perry, President
Jireh Business Information Solutions, Inc.
North Huntingdon, PA, USA

Says our friend Varun Sharma:

"Everything is planned in such a way that it looks like the company has opened just an extension of their office to another country."

That does clarify for me the deceptive nature of the offshoring relationships.  Thank you for verifying that for us.

I will reciprocate and clarify something for Sunil and Varun.  The vast majority of your audience on this site are the local experts who are losing work to your operations.  These are the people who recognize the importance of local knowledge and expertise because they have spent decades learning and developing.  They know the local standards and practices and the effect of instruments (locally) on the condition of title.

I do not doubt your ability to quickly pick up what you are taught.  What I doubt is this:  That they have taught you even a significant fraction of the information you would need to know to produce a thorough title search in every state in this country.  There are just too many differences from state to state and region to region.

When you tout the benefits of outsourcing the title search function so that a title agent may concentrate on the core functions, I can't help but doubt your understanding of the role you purport to fulfill.  The title search is a core function.  In fact, it is the basis upon which the title policy is issued.  The title search is the foundation of the industry.  It is not a clerical task to be outsourced.

Sunil, even though I believe you will find it difficult to convince many on this site as to the value of outsourcing to India, at the same time, I value honest dialogue.  I hope you will continue to post  here.  Maybe we will all learn something.

Jay,

You are correct, we cannot giveup so easily. And kindly read the clarification on the facts and issues you have raised :

- Firstly the jobs are not being taken up by the Indian companies at all, it totally depends on the title companies who want to outsource work to India and Secondly only noncore activities are being outsourced and the main work remains there in U.S. Also this (Title Industry) is not the only stream which is outsourcing its work to India or to some other place, many other domains are outsourcing there non-core business activities to offshore locations. So even if some of the non-core activities are being outsourced it does not effect a lot to people who have the right expertise.

- The second point, accessing the property records from India or from any other offshore location. we do not keep these records with us, either these records are saved in a dedicated server or hard drive which is being shared among the people who work in a company also only the people who need to access that data have the access to these servers and noone else can access these records and before outsourcing operations title comapny's officers duly sheck the data security of the organization to whom they outsource their non-core activities. Also things like typing a legal description does not matter for anyone there in U.S, however the Indian companies make sure that whatever they do for their clients (even typing a legal description of the property, no matter how much long it would be) should be correct word to word. I don't think that anbody in U.S who work in a title company care about typing legals correctly or checking it once again after typing, even it is a very critical task.

- Also companies who work on offshore locations are more concerned about identity theft problems. That is why most of the reputed companies here are ISO Compliant and no employee in these organizations have access to USBs of the computers on which they work and also have limited access to other applications and softwares. These companies have their seprate IT divisions to check that every thing kept in the server is safe and noone can access the systems without proper privileges, also these companies have agreements signed with their employees so that noone can even dare to share the information outside.

- Yes the offshored companies have no way of knowing the little problems and also offshoring companies even doesn't work for all the 50 states of United States. Also these companies just help title companies to tackle the volumes and wants to be an extension of their teams, it is not that we want to strip jobs from U.S. Also not all the 50 states and every county there is online, so all the jobs could never be shifted from there. Also it depends if an outsourcing company can duely check records of a property, if the company makes a simple mistake then they pay for it. The offshoring companies have their own E & O Insurance for which they also pay premiums. And what they get for searching a property records and doing all the due deligence is bare $10 on an average not more than that, for that they might have to pay $1,00,0000 in the future. These companies does not say that their liabity is limited to the amount that thay have got for their service as most of abstractors mention on their reports.

- So we do not intend to ship any job, even we want that everyone should get oppotunity and if these companies working on offshore locations are getting very small tasks that dosen't matter for anyone there in U.S. should not make any difference and also these companies are ISO compliant that means the risk of identity theft is far less. Also on this point of identity theft I remember an example of TJ max store which is a very big chain of U.S. lost their data due to hacking so how can anyone say that if the records are pulled up by an american company it is 100% secure !!

Regards

Ansh

I just wanted to confirm to Mr. Patrick what I said....I am 100% correct when I say "Everything is planned in such a way that it looks like the company has opened just an extension of their office to another country."

Mr. Patrick with all the respect due to you, you rightly said that people who recognize the importance of local knowledge and expertise because they have spend decades learning and developing know the local standards and practices and the effect of instruments on the condition of title.

I want to say that this is true even to us...even here in India we have our different division from closing, scheduling, title search, commitment, abstract follow-ups, taxes and so on. and every state has a different division to do title searches on....There are different teams working on different states doing online title searches all at the same time and they are trained on state specific laws and nuances because they are experience in conducting searches in that particular State only.  Now when the title search is done there is a different team sitting in the next cubicle ready to type commitments and send back to the client. All on the same day.  THIS IS A HUGE ADVANTAGE TITLE COMPANY CAN HAVE BY OFFSHORING THEIR OPERATIONS.

Now when you may talk about  data security because public records are kept online...What you don't know Sir is that All of our centers here in India are compliant to ISO and BS-7799 standards which means that not even a single piece of paper can be moved in or out of office. I guarantee you that if you ever get a chance to come to India please visit the facilities where offshoring work is done....you would not be allowed to enter your laptops in the office unless the due diligence of the laptop is done by the IT departments.

Last but not the least I am not posting here to convince any of the audiences here to offshore their work but seriously it does make sense to you when you offshore your title operations to India as most of the largest title companies of US have done.....FACT: All Top 5 Underwriters of US have outsourced their title work to India including the complex functions like title searches, HUD prep, tax searches, payoffs etc.

Now I don't have to convince anyone to offshore their title operations...or do I...I am eagerly awaiting your reply on this.

The other day when I reposted part of a blog  by Sunil Ojha (that had been removed by Source of Title as being self promotional) and commented upon it, I did so in the hope that I could begin a good, honest  discussion about the topic of outsourcing on these pages with participants from both sides.

As an American abstractor from a jurisdiction which has thrown caution to the wind and posted many of of its records online to be used or abused as the world sees fit, I admit to having a preexisting notion that the practice of outsourcing is dangerous.  As the local knowledge base is removed and replaced with machine logic and foreign conceptions of what state and local real property particularisms might mean I cannot see that the quality of the final product will be raised. And that begs the question...why are American companies willing to cheat the American people where it comes to the quality of the product it gives the consumer?

A one word answer might be greed. However, if you look behind the facade it is even worse than that. It is in fact a greed which is based in the notion that title insurance as we know it is or should be an historical product, or a product reserved for special circumstances. The industry is moving away from title insurance toward title casualty. In doing so risks become more acceptable if the price of production is driven downward. Companies know they will take more losses, but they accept this if the price of the work is reduced.

That is why it is so difficult for American abstractors to give themselves a raise from time to time. We are competing with an unseen presence in the market which proclaims its service and value in no uncertain terms. It boldly holds forth that "we can do it better and cheaper than you" Well...cheaper...yes, but better...no way.

The beauty of this is that the discussion here has been so very enlightening. Our Indian friends have been forthcoming with their rationale, and my colleagues who have responded have done so with great thought, wit and insight. I will enjoy this discussion as it progresses, as I hope that it does.

My questions for this community are the following...Isn't it time that we begin to do something about this in a serious and systematic way. Is it possible that this threat will not mobilize us to take some concerted action where we can? At a minimum, should we not be contacting ALTA and our state associations demanding explainations about their programs promoting outsourcing? Are we going to simply accept some mealy mouthed response that the world has moved on and these educational and certification programs reflect today's reality? As the giant banks merge, their giant title companies suck up a larger and larger share of the market, and send it overseas...to companies like Mr. Ojha's. Are you prepared to sit and allow that to be the future?

Take a few moments and reread the posts from India. They say so much.

My questions for this community are the following...Isn't it time that we begin to do something about this in a serious and systematic way. Is it possible that this threat will not mobilize us to take some concerted action where we can? At a minimum, should we not be contacting ALTA and our state associations demanding explanations about their programs promoting outsourcing?

In my opinion, I think that there are a few things that can be done.  First, I would let ALTA and the state land title associations know how you feel.  ALTA, particularly, seems very receptive to the offshoring concept.  For this, and other positions of ALTA, I have not been a member the past couple of years.  The best way to let them know how you feel is to stop supporting them financially if they do not stand up and represent your interests. 

Next, I think that it would be good to unite under an organization that truly represents your interests.  The only organization that I know of that is devoted to the independent abstractors is NALTEA.  Unfortunately, NALTEA is not large enough to effectively take on such a huge issue, but that could change with enough support from the abstractors.  As we have seen before, most abstractors aren't willing to join NALTEA unless they get some immediate benefit and change takes time.  Abstractors need to get over that - they really should start showing support for NALTEA to help get things moving.

Lastly, I think that local independent abstractors need to work harder to become more knowledgeable about their profession.  I think we have reached a point where most abstractors are really doing the same thing that is done in India - copying filing information from the recorded documents.  Abstracting is much more than that, and I think as a whole abstractors have lost sight of that.  Again, I do realize that there are some good abstractors out there, but many are no better than their Indian counterparts.  We really need to be more educated about our states real estate laws and demonstrate a higher level of professionalism to entice companies away from cheaper offshoring.  (See, generally, Are The Abstractors To Blame For Offshoring?).