The title insurance industry lobbied hard to exclude title insurance from the definition of “financial activities” so as to escape being subject to the massive regime that the Agency promises, in its present incarnation, to be. After the amendment passed, the American Land Title Association offered commendation to Congress for their admission, by default, that title insurance is best regulated by a state regulatory system.

If an AfBA is not properly established and disclosed to the consumer, the exemption from liability permitted under RESPA’s Section 8’s prohibition against fees, kickbacks, or things of value, is lost. In such an event, an AfBA would then be termed a sham AfBA. The AfBA exemption to liability does not apply to sham AfBA’s whose return on corporate profits is attributable to unlawful kickbacks and unearned fees. RESPA will continue to regard AfBA’s as complex relationships between legal entities that may not be well understood by the consumer. In fact, some AfBA relationships are so complex, they appear to have been designed to obfuscate these same relationships in an effort to distract the consumer from shopping for settlement services. Such relationships should be addressed now, before the CFPA comes calling and asks for a report.