Ohio Code 3953.30 – Notice comparing lender’s and owner’s title insurance
(A) As used in this section:
Terms Used In Ohio Code 3953.30
- Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
- Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
- Mortgage loan: A loan made by a lender to a borrower for the financing of real property. Source: OCC
- Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- Person: includes an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, and association. See Ohio Code 1.59
- Property: means real and personal property. See Ohio Code 1.59
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
- state: means the state of Ohio. See Ohio Code 1.59
- Title insurance: means insuring, guaranteeing, or indemnifying owners of real property or others interested in real property against loss or damage suffered by reason of liens or encumbrances upon, defect in, or the unmarketability of the title to the real property, guaranteeing, warranting, or otherwise insuring by a title insurance company the correctness of searches relating to the title to real property, or doing any business in substance equivalent to any of the foregoing. See Ohio Code 3953.01
- Title insurance agent: means a person, partnership, or corporation authorized in writing by a title insurance company to solicit insurance and collect premiums and to issue or countersign policies on its behalf. See Ohio Code 3953.01
(1) “Residential mortgage loan” means an obligation to pay a sum of money evidenced by a note and secured by a lien upon real property located within this state containing two or fewer residential units or on which two or fewer residential units are to be constructed and includes such an obligation on a residential condominium or cooperative unit.
(2) “Residential mortgage lender” means any person, including, but not limited to, banks, savings and loan associations, mortgage brokers, credit unions, or savings banks, that lends money or extends or grants credit and obtains a residential mortgage to assure payment of the debt.
(B) A title insurance agent issuing a lender’s title insurance policy in conjunction with a residential mortgage loan made simultaneously with the purchase of all or part of the real property securing the loan, where no owner’s title insurance policy has been requested, shall give written notice, on a form prescribed or approved by the superintendent of insurance, to the mortgagor at the time the commitment is prepared. The notice shall explain that a lender’s title insurance policy is to be issued protecting the residential mortgage lender, and that the policy does not provide title insurance protection to the mortgagor as the owner of the property being purchased. The notice shall explain what an owner’s title insurance policy insures against and what possible exposures exist for the mortgagor that could be insured against through the purchase of an owner’s title insurance policy. The notice shall state that the mortgagor may obtain an owner’s title insurance policy protecting the mortgagor as the owner of the property, either at a specified cost or at an approximate cost if the proposed coverages or amount of insurance is not then known. The title insurance agent shall maintain a copy of the notice, signed by the mortgagor, for at least ten years after the effective date of the lender’s title insurance policy.