Building a Title Plant Doug Bello D. Bello Associates, Inc. Pasadena, California 2004 halFILE User Group Austin, Texas

Introduction There’s no “road map” to follow There’s no “right way” to do this You will only do this once, no second chances! Building a Title Plant

What to expect This is a big time commitment Don’t think this will be easy Building a Title Plant

Before you begin Talk to other title companies: they are a great resource for do’s and don'ts Talk to someone at hal Systems: they’ve been through a few of these over the years Appoint a project manager, give someone this responsibility. Building a Title Plant

Set-up Checklist Obtain all source documents Plat edits Establish all keying/posting rules and put them in writing Locating/arbing procedures Building a Title Plant

Establishing Keying Rules Understand necessities vs. luxuries; Everything you key costs $$ Understand the purpose of what you are keying: Will you be searching from the title chain or looking at each document? Don’t ‘go crazy’ in the portion of legal or the remarks field Building a Title Plant

County Name Indexes Can you obtain an outside source of grantor/grantee names? Do you agree with the parties that are picked up from the documents? Is it consistent and reliable? Always have a back-up plan Building a Title Plant

Dealing with Locates What is a locate? Count on 10-12% of all recorded documents to be located How do deal with locates in a backplant vs. daily keying Building a Title Plant

Testing & Quality Assurance Always complete a sample keying test Continue testing until you get satisfactory results Quality check work on a regular basis Never assume that a good sample will continue forever – things change What is an acceptable error rate? Building a Title Plant

Ensuring Quality Single pass vs. double pass Sight verification vs. key verification How does key verification work Plat edits: verifying lots and blocks as well as valid Sections, Townships and Ranges Building a Title Plant

Outsourcing: Is it for me? No in-house staff training, no hiring, no firing No overtime when recordings soar Lower plant maintenance costs Start-up is a lot of work Less ‘control’ over personnel Continued QA will be your responsibility Pros Cons Building a Title Plant

Outsourcing: Selecting a Vendor Obtain and contact multiple references Ask specific questions: “How would you..?” If they don’t know what sectional property is, you are probably talking to the wrong vendor Do they understand title? Do they have other capabilities such as to search or arb? Building a Title Plant

Protecting your Data Back up your plant and images Use at least one off-site source of data storage Be sure to back up plat edits, PIN lists, and any other tables or data Hard copy data should be filmed or scanned directly into halFILE Building a Title Plant

Success and Failure stories…

Famous Last Words “I wish I had talked to someone who had done this before.” “I didn’t know how hard this was going to be.” “I didn’t budget enough time.” “I didn’t understand how the title searching software worked with what I had keyed.” “I wish I had understood this from the start.” Building a Title Plant

Questions & Discussion