I just thought I was being over sensitive to the fact that I don't differentiate between the many types of "liens" on my front sheet- I have a policy of reporting all of the liens, judgments, trusts and or mortgages that I find, regardless of the acronym they carry with them, and that is not affected by criticisms of how I might perform the searches. The product I provide to the client is not based on what kind of deal the land owner struck with some loan officer or mortgage broker some where, and it does not need to know or understand any of those details either. It is just a title search, not a detailed financial critique of the land owner and what he or she might have done wrong or right when they got what they got.
Integrity of the person and the title is what counts the most in our business, it is something we can sell and should do more selling of while taking on the big bad title companies that want to undermine our profession with short changed title plants and sub-standard title searches being performed by unqualified persons in places that can't be found with map-quest. The title companies have sacrificed integrity for premiums collected- and in the end will be paying out for that greed through the claims that arise from missed trusts, or mortgages because they use personal that don't have a clue as to how to perform a "complete" title search, Best of Luck to them and a very "Happy New Claims" year ahead for them also.
Steve Meinecke
IA/Titlefax
Franklin, Tn