Your closing costs might include two types of title insurance policies, but do you know how these policies differ. Title insurance policies include:

1. Lender’s policy
2. Owner’s policy

Lender’s Policy

If you’ve ever mortgaged a home, chances are you were required to purchase a title insurance policy. This lender’s policy (often called a loan policy) is required by most lending institutions as a way to insure their security interest in the property. This policy protects the bank or other lending institution for as long as they maintain an interest in the property (typically until your mortgage is paid off).

Owner’s Policy

However, as a buyer, you also want to protect your investment — and the ownership rights that come with it. This is why it’s wise to purchase an owner’s policy of title insurance, which will protect your rights as the homeowner for as long as you or your heirs have an interest in the property.

Both title insurance policies not only pay valid claims and legal fees to defend against hidden title issues, but also help to decrease ownership risks by providing a thorough title search prior to the issuance of either policy.

Refinance Transactions

If you’re considering refinancing your mortgage, you may be surprised to see that you are required to purchase a new lender’s policy of title insurance. This is because a lender’s policy only provides coverage for the life of a loan. When a home is refinanced, the life of one loan ends and another begins. Thus, a new lender’s policy for title is required. Because an owner’s policy provides coverage for as long as you or your heirs hold an interest in the property, there is no need to purchase a new owner’s policy when refinancing.

Andy Segrest
Attorney
RANDALL | SEGREST

Mississippi landlords are likely to be pleased with Senate Bill 2473, which was adopted in the 2018 Legislative Session and became effective July 1, 2018. The new law makes landlord-friendly changes to the Residential Landlord Tenant Act (Section 89-8-1 et seq. of the Mississippi Code) and to the statutes addressing eviction of tenants in Sections 89-7-1 et seq. The most significant change, both to the eviction process and way that landlords draft their leases, provides that notice of default may be sent by email or text if the parties have agreed in writing to these methods of notice. Also, the notice required to be given when a rental agreement is breached has been decreased from 30 days to 14 days.

Other changes to the eviction statutes include protecting the landlord’s rights to collect late fees in addition to overdue rent by expanding the definition of “rent” to include any late fees that a defaulting tenant is required to pay under the rental agreement. Also, the law permits the landlord to evict for any event for which the lease provides eviction as a remedy, rather than only for holding over or failure to pay rent.

Provisions in the new law sought to speed up the eviction process and remove discretion from the judge. Under the revised statute, hearings for eviction due to the nonpayment of rent are not be continued beyond 45 days from the date of filing. Section 89-7-49 has been amended to remove the discretion of the judge to put the landlord in possession of the premises when a tenant fails to pay rent. The legislation requires that any judge “presiding over a hearing in which a landlord seeks to remove a tenant for nonpayment of rent shall abide by the provisions of the rental agreement that was signed by the landlord and the defaulting tenant.”

Bradley Reeves
Attorney
RANDALL | SEGREST