I own a national title company. I hire abstractors and notaries all the time. I have not had one lender ever ask who is closing my loan or to provide background checks or who did the search. All they want to see is a copy of my E & O policy and a copy of my title license. I also get calls and emails daily from signing companies telling me if I use them, they will take care of making sure that all notaries have a background check annually. This is a sales technique, a way for companies to make more money at your expense and it is not required by any state or government agency which I tell them is not required so using them actually costs me more money than going right to you the notary and cutting them out. ALTA came out with ALTAs Best Practices and they ( Mostly the salesmen for the companies that provide the services to insure compliance with best practices )have been trying to convince everyone that their ideas are the law. ALTA is a trade association and they do not have the ability to force its ideas on state, federal, or local governments, Banks, Lenders, Mortgage companies, Signing agents, Notary's, Abstractors, Title companies or any other private business. Here is the bottom line.  It is not required and I tell them no. The funny thing is they all still use me and they will use you too. What is better, to use a notary or abstractor for ten years with no claims or to use a notary or abstractor with a current background check who may not even know how to do their jobs. Stand your ground and choose to not believe the goods they are selling. Look at your bottom line. Do they really know how many employees you have?, do they really know who is doing the work? This is the problem with the whole system. I can hire anyone that has credentials but in the end, I have no idea who did the work and they won't either. I am a current member of ALTA and I am not against them or their ideas or thoughts but please also remember that half of the board and 95% of their money comes from underwriters so the lobby and employees are going to be for those that support their families or pay checks. It is in an underwriters best interest to make you do these things as it reduces their liability for claims which at least makes sense from an underwriters prospective. We also know that all the underwriters off shore work to India as they contact me daily begging me to send them work and do not follow the same rules they want us to follow. This creates an unfair advantage, first they will work for pennies on the dollar, then they can bypass all of the state and federal rules as they work in another county. How can you sue someone who works online from home in India for breaking US law when they never stepped foot in our county all over a $10 current owner title search? All the info we see as abstractors is public info online available to anyone. I could see some liability as to personal private financial info for a licensed notary but please keep in mind that the state that regulates that has already done a background check or you would not be a notary. Now your being told that the state background check and process is not acceptable? I have also noticed that the underwriters are buying up all of the business that provide these services in an effort to gain profit. In the end, if a client picks my company to handle their settlement, I already follow every state and federal law and the lender is off the hook as they did not send any business to me and the client has a legal right to pick whoever they want to handle their settlement. When I get audited, I am asked what I am doing to follow Best Practices by my underwriter. My answer is, I am doing nothing as it is not required by any state or federal agency and then I am told by them that it is coming. . I let them know that if they are not happy that I get calls from underwriters almost daily asking me to transfer my business to them. The bottom line is this. I mail in checks daily to them and they make money on me and there is really very little liability on them. I go and find the clients, I do the work, they really only insure for title errors and if it would be my fault or the fault of a vendor of mine if we make an error or break a law or rule, they file a claim against my E & O policy so they do not pay the claim if it is my fault. If I were to break a law or rule, my assumption is that I would be liable and they would sue not the underwriter as they have nothing to do with my opperation other than allow me to mail them checks and sell their title insurance. I hope this helps put this issue of background checks to rest as it is really not debatable. The last thing on this topic is this. If a client sends you alot of business and you are scared of losing that business, look at how much work they send you and then deceide if the cost to comply with their request is justified. Will you still make a profit? You can also tell them you will but you will have to raise the cost to compy and pass the cost along to them. How much to do bet if you raise your price, the orders go down? This means they want you to work for less really and reduce their risk of potential claims which is really non exsistant. Lastly, I reccoment that you join a land title association and keep watch on what is going on so you will be informed and can work against or for an item it if you believe that this is not or for your best interest. You have a voice so make sure you let your congress state and federal representives know what you want and do not want. If noone oppose's an item, it is easy to get support in congress. If they get alot of calls against something, they will not vote for it unless they get alot of money from a lobby to support it but in the end, they need to be re-elected so your voice can kill a potential bill. Please also know that at present the CFPB has been ruled unconstitional. It was the only govenment agency that made 100% of its funding from finding fault with those that it governed which I believe is unfair as they need to increase regulation so they can get paid. I think you can agree that there are those who do break the rules and need to be dealt with but if it is important to the people, then provide the money needed to support the agenct so that its funding does not come from those it governs as this seems unfair. God Bless, Keep your head up and continue to do the good work you do. Where would any state of national title company be with out you. They cannot do it without YOU, never underestimate your value.

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