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20 Reasons to use TitlePLUS

Note: The following is extracted from TitlePLUS - It's Not Just About Title Insurance, by Bob Aaron of Aaron & Aaron, for the Law Society of Upper Canada's "Six Minute Real Estate Lawyer" seminar.

The top 20 reasons I use TitlePLUS on every real estate transaction:

20. I actually like the program. I like the reminders. I like the checklists. Never again will I forget to review an estoppel certificate, or check for new home occupancy, or verify the status of a parking or locker space.

19. It takes only a few minutes but it's worth it. To those lawyers who say to me that it takes too long, I say come to my office. If there's a wrinkle, it's maybe 15 minutes. In most cases I never have to talk to anybody or even read an incoming or outgoing fax. It's all done electronically. And if I need to talk to someone at TitlePLUS, they have a great customer support team.

18. I love the consumer video. It sells the product itself. It's well done, professional, and true-to-life. It's free. I mail or hand it to all my purchaser clients - even if it's not an eligible TitlePLUS transaction.

17. It saves my clients money. In condominium transactions, in the City of Toronto, clients actually come out ahead. In Registry-system purchases, where there have been several owners, it saves clients money. In many cases, I don't even ask clients who are buying condominiums or refinancing mortgages whether they want TitlePLUS. I send them the video, and the Working With a Lawyer When You Buy a Home booklet, and in my introductory letter I tell them that I'm going to use TitlePLUS and that it will actually save them money. In the two years I've been using TitlePLUS, no one has ever objected.

16. I don't have much trouble selling it anymore. The more I use the product, the more comfortable with it I've become, and the easier it becomes to sell it. I find that the public consciousness of title insurance has now been raised - largely by TitlePLUS advertising. Many clients are now aware of title insurance in general and TitlePLUS in particular. After my clients see the video and my "hello" letter, they generally opt for TitlePLUS in the first minute of our follow-up conversation.

15. I appreciate the GOODSTART program - also known as the New Home Closing Package. More than 7,000 units in 40 developments to date are promoting real estate lawyers in general and TitlePLUS and its participating lawyers in particular.

    In my practice it's not the total fee that counts as much as what's left over after the clients get their keys.

    I don't have any problem charging the $799 GoodStart fee and disbursement package on a transaction if I don't have to do any searches (except a subsearch), or any requisition letters. My office time will be limited to reviewing the offer, advising on Rule 30*, preparing the mortgage, creating the TitlePLUS application from a prepared script, signing up the client, reviewing the abstract page search only, and closing. No inquiry letters. No cheques. No responses to file. Total out-of-pocket cost to me before closing is one search at $5 and two execution certificates at $11 each.

    I calculate the processing overhead for a GoodStart deal at less than half the cost to me of a typical file. And whether my fees are 50 percent higher, or my processing costs are 50 percent lower doesn't matter to me as long as the bottom line is the same.

    At least two developers in the Toronto area are steering purchasers to the closing centres. Who would you rather have builders steer clients to - you or the closing centres?

14. I use TitlePLUS for all the so-called "ordinary" deals. I'm aware that many of us use title insurance only for problem deals. As far as I'm concerned, every deal is a problem deal if I can get sued on it. And that's why I use it for every possible transaction that I can.

13. I like paying lower LAWPRO premiums. As you know, LAWPRO premiums have dropped from $5,600 in 1995 to $3,150 in 2000. Why? Because claims against real estate lawyers are dropping, and because the transaction levy is absorbing part of the premium risk. Soon the risk pool should reflect the fact that thousands of title-insured transactions will have been removed from the general LAWPRO risk pool - pushing premiums even lower still.

12. As Ontario lawyers and members of the Law Society, we are all co-owners of LAWPRO and TitlePLUS. As the use of TitlePLUS becomes more and more widespread, who do you think will benefit from the profits? Title insurance can be a very profitable business - take a look at the public filings of some American title insurers on the Internet. I find it exciting to think that TitlePLUS profits could eventually accrue to all Ontario lawyers through annual fee reductions. LAWPRO is a very valuable asset which we own, and we should treasure it.

11. As lawyers, we're not in the title insurance business. We're in the conveyancing business. There are huge marketplace pressures at work in this field, and the marketplace players of the past are not going to be the players of the future. The competitive forces at work against us are huge. If we don't use new tools like TitlePLUS, the public will come to believe that paralegals, banks and closing centres can do it better and cheaper.

10. In the days before TitlePLUS it was a common complaint in the conveyancing Bar that some lawyers weren't doing a "proper" job - they were said to be cutting corners, not doing some of the searches set out in the Law Society's real estate checklist. Now, with TitlePLUS, we're using a level playing field. The electronic checklist is there for all of us. A committee of our colleagues designed and refined that checklist for our benefit and the benefit of our clients.

9. I appreciate the fact that TitlePLUS is out there marketing for me, and promoting me like nobody ever did in my 27 years of practice. For example, as of this summer, TitlePLUS:
   • enrolled 7,000 units in the GoodStart program, where lawyers are exclusively marketed
   • made referrals to more than 150 lawyers in GoodStart deals
   • handled close to 400 GoodMortgage deals
   • made more than 1,000 referrals at new home seminars
   • produced 10,000 closing package folders and 10,000 lawyer brochures
   • placed 50 ads in local newspapers naming specific TitlePLUS lawyers
   • placed many ads in real estate and lender publications
   • aired 30 radio ads on local radio stations
   • aired 12 TV commercials on community real estate programs
   • made more than 100 visits to lenders, agents and boards
   • participated in 5 major lender events and more than 15 consumer events

   Who has ever done anything like this for you and me and the rest of the real estate bar? The answer is simple – no one. LAWPRO and TitlePLUS are all that stands between me as a viable real property lawyer and me as a dinosaur.

8. Every time we write a letter, every time we write a cheque, every time we address an envelope, every time we open a reply and place it in the appropriate file, every key stroke on our computers - it costs money.

   Conversely, every time we don't have to do one or more of these steps saves us money. Every time I don't have to write for work orders, tax certificates, water certificates, PPSA searches, hydro easements, and corporate status certificates, and every time I don't have to search executions against John Smith who owned the property 20 years ago - I'm saving someone's time. I'm saving my time and that of my secretary, my law clerk, my receptionist, and my bookkeeper. Needless to say, they have embraced TitlePLUS enthusiastically as they too can see the benefits of doing less work while affording the clients full protection.

7. Since I spend less on disbursements - much less - I write far fewer cheques every month. And my cash flow has improved dramatically because I'm out of pocket far less money on every transaction before it closes. The cheques I write for TitlePLUS come out of trust money after closing, and not my general account two months before closing.

6. I like the legal services coverage which the other residential insurers cannot provide. If a claim is made on a policy with another title insurer, I'm not sure it would waive subrogation and an E&O file at LAWPRO could be the result.

5. I'm looking forward to the integration of TitlePLUS with Cakeware. A far as I'm concerned, every time we save one keystroke on a computer program by using a shared database, I save money.

4. For the technologically-minded client - and more and more of them are - TitlePLUS has a web site designed to promote the services of lawyers. I don't ever recall any other market player devoting this amount of money, resources and expertise to promote my services and my involvement as a lawyer in real estate transactions. Take a look at www.titleplus.ca.

3. TitlePLUS is not running ads which read: Leave your practice on our doorstep. I only deal with title insurers who are not opening their own closing centres to compete with me and put me out of business. I only deal with title insurers who have not publicly stated that they are in business with the stated purpose of "minimizing the role of the real estate lawyer and centralizing and automating clerical functions." I don't like the title insurance company which sends letters to Bank of Montreal branches saying that their refinance programs "offer customers cost savings and the convenience of not having to attend at a lawyer or notary's office..." How does it serve the public interest by "moving the real estate conveyance practice away from the (law) firm's traditional practice"?

   Why any lawyer would use such a competitor is beyond me. And this is the same company that lobbied the provincial government to repeal Regulation 666 under The Insurance Act so they could write title insurance without lawyers. I am eternally grateful to LAWPRO and the Law Society for their own hard-fought lobbying campaign which saved 666.

2. I once defined a good day at the office as one in which I wasn't sued by a former client. The fact is I hate being sued. Having had the unpleasant experience of being sued (by an unsuccessful plaintiff as it turns out) I can tell you it can ruin your whole day - and month, and year.

   Nor do I get any pleasure from seeing on the Law Society's suspension list the names of lawyers I know who can't afford astronomical LAWPRO premiums because of numerous paid claims.

   The simple truth is that every closed file I put away with a TitlePLUS label on it is one on which I can't be sued, and won't ever be called on to pay a deductible, or defence costs, or $10,000 in uprated premiums over 5 years.

1. And finally - my number one reason for using TitlePLUS.

   I have a vision of the future - which I've written about in Brief News - where lawyers will be one-stop service centres for home buyers and sellers. We will list and market properties. We will actually prepare and negotiate agreements of purchase and sale, rather than having to clean up the mess afterward. We will sell fire and liability insurance. We will use the Internet to arrange mortgages for our clients, and obtain the best possible rates and terms. We will arrange TitlePLUS insurance. We will e-mail movers, painters, plumbers, carpet-layers and other trades for quotes to be sent directly to our clients. We will close our transactions electronically, wire funds instantly, and hand keys to our clients at 10 o'clock in the morning instead of 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

   We will serve the public even more fully than we do now, not only quarterbacking a transaction with legal advice, but handling all aspects of it from beginning to end. And above all, we will stay in the game and be compensated fairly. Which is more than I can say for the current situation.

   TitlePLUS is the first step in this vision of the future, with electronic searching and electronic registration appearing second and third. TitlePLUS to me is not just a practice tool. TitlePLUS is not just about title insurance. In my office it's a way of life, and the door to the future. Step through it and leave the past behind.

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