October 21, 2022
Loudoun Commercial Title, LLC congratulates John Mashack on his induction to the Board of Directors of the Virginia Land Title Association as a Director At-Large for the 2022-2023 Board year and on his 2022 Volunteer of the Year award.
August 19, 2022
Loudoun Commercial Title, LLC congratulates our Founder Bob Gordon on his retirement following a remarkable career with over 40 years of experience of practicing law in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Bob opened Loudoun Commercial Title in 2004 and had underwritten and closed several thousand commercial and residential real estate transactions before retiring.
His daughter, Kate Gordon has been with the company since 2011 and became President of Loudoun Commercial Title in 2020. We are continuing to provide expert knowledge and high-quality service to our customers and build upon the foundation laid down by Bob. We wish Bob nothing but the best in his future endeavors.
August 30, 2022
by John L. Mashack
Originally published in VLTA Examiner Magazine
When asked to write an article for the Examiner Magazine on obtaining the ALTA National Title Professional (NTP) Designation, several thoughts ran through my mind. First, I was flattered that a simple post on the VLTA Online Community website had inspired another member to consider, and eventually earn the NTP Designation herself. Second, I was excited about being given the opportunity to write my first article for publication on professional development in general and the NTP Designation in particular. And finally, I was a little bit terrified at the prospect of actually having to write something for others to read.
I discovered the NTP Designation in Autumn 2020 when I decided to seek additional educational opportunities in the land title industry and registered for the Virginia Certified Title Examiner (VCTE) and Virginia Certified Title Settlement Agent (VCTSA) courses offered by VLTA. The course summaries on the VLTA website stated that these certifications were approved for credit toward the NTP Designation. My interest piqued, I immediately clicked on the provided link to find out what this NTP Designation was all about. That day I started the process of becoming a National Title Professional.
Below are a few questions I encountered on my journey to earning the NTP Designation. I will also show the nuts and bolts on how I earned the required 100 NTP points to show that it is possible for others to earn this accolade as well.
What is the NTP Designation?
The National Title Professional (NTP) Designation is a professional credential for mid-career professionals in the land title industry. It is provided by the American Land Title Association (ALTA), the national trade association that represents the land title industry. Below is a brief description of the NTP designation taken from the ALTA NTP website:
The National Title Professional (NTP) Designation is designed to recognize land title professionals who demonstrate the knowledge, experience, and dedication essential to the safe and efficient transfer of real property.
What are the prerequisites?
There are several prerequisites necessary to apply for the NTP, but a few I would like to highlight are as follows: you must be currently working and have a minimum of five years of experience in the land title industry, you must meet the licensing requirements in each state where you physically conduct business, and you must be a member or employed by a member company of both ALTA and your state or regional land title association. In addition, you will need to complete three courses offered by ALTA: Title 101, Title 201, and Ethics in the Title Industry. There is also the option of completing the NTP equivalency exam in lieu of the three courses.
What do I need to do to EARN the ntp designation?
You will need to earn a total of 100 NTP points from the seven categories listed below:
A maximum of 30 NTP points can be earned in each section. I earned 90 of the required 100 points by maxing out three sections: Sections 4, 6 and 10. Here is how I did it.
I earned 30 NTP points in Section 4 by obtaining the VCTE and VCTSA certifications. Either certification is sufficient to satisfy this section, both are not required.
For Section 6 I started attending monthly VLTA Committee meetings. I also attended meetings presented by other regional professional associations related to the land title industry, as well as the 2021 ALTA Springboard and the 2021 ALTA Advocacy Summit. One point per day is earned for every meeting you attend over the preceding 5 years.
Section 10 was the easiest to earn 30 NTP points. I simply added up the preceding 5 years of Continuing Education (CE) credit needed for my Virginia and DC Title Producer licenses. You earn one point for each half day (0-4 hour) course and two points for each full day (5-8 hour) course.
Finally, I earned one point for each of the 17 years of industry experience, plus some a few other miscellaneous points here and there, to get me over the 100-point line.
HOW MUCH WILL IT COST to EARN the ntp designation?
In addition to the expenses required to maintain your state Title Producer licenses, there is the cost for obtaining the VCTSA or VCTE certification. The current price for the VCTSA course is $310 for VLTA members and $570 for non-members. At this time, the VCTE course is being revamped and will be updated and released shortly.
Prices for the three ALTA prerequisite courses and the NTP equivalency exam are listed below.
Earning NTP points for Section 8: State and Regional Land Title Association Involvement can be accomplished relatively inexpensively. Attendance to the VLTA monthly meetings is free. Most of the education webinars offered by ALTA are free as well. You can visit the ALTA website for registration information and pricing for ALTA events, including ALTA Springboard, ALTA Advocacy Summit, and ALTA ONE.
Section 10: Education and Training should not bear too much of an additional expense because you should be able to earn the maximum 30 NTP points offered by tallying up your CE credit hours for your Title Producer license over the last 5 years. I earned 9 points in this section from the 2021 VLTA Annual Convention alone.
Finally, a non-refundable $95 application fee is due when submitting the NTP Designation application.
I went to the VLTA Annual Convention last year. Can I put that under both Section 6 Attendance Record and Section 10: Education and Training?
You can put it in either section but not both. You cannot request points for the same event in more than one section. On my application I listed six points under Section 10 for the 6 hours of CE credit I earned at the convention. I completed the last three CE hours of on-demand courses after submitting my application so I will reserve those for my renewal application.
Now that I have THE NTP Designation, what do I need to do to keep it?
The NTP Designation is valid for three years, expiring on December 31 of the third year following designation. The renewal process is similar to the initial application process. However, for renewal you will only need to earn 30 NTP points in the following four sections:
A minimum of 10 NTP points must be earned in Section 4 and a maximum of 20 points can be earned in Section 3. Essentially, you will need to maintain your Title Producer licenses, VCTE/VCTSA certifications, and participate in ALTA sponsored events, meetings and webinars and you should satisfy the requirements for NTP Designation renewal. You will also need to pay a $95 renewal application fee.
What are some benefits of obtaining the NTP Designation?
I have been an NTP since January 1, 2022, but I’ve already observed quite a few benefits in that short time. Below are a couple of benefits I’ve noticed in the 6 months I’ve been an NTP.
I wrote this piece hoping to inspire others to begin their own NTP journey. I would be extremely gratified if other Virginia title industry professionals would join me in becoming National Title Professionals. As of writing this, there are 97 NTP Designees on the ALTA NTP Directory, with only 5 from Virginia. I challenge my fellow VLTA members to increase the Virginia representation of NTP Designees to double digits.
LINKS
https://www.alta.org/education/ntp.cfm
https://elevate.alta.org/
https://www.vlta.org/cce
https://www.alta.org/events/
February 17, 2022
Loudoun Commercial Title, LLC is proud to announce that John Mashack was designated a National Title Professional from the American Land Title Association on January 1, 2022.
The National Title Professional (NTP) Designation is designed to recognize land title professionals who demonstrate the knowledge, experience, and dedication essential to the safe and efficient transfer of real property.
October 19, 2020
By: John L. Mashack
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The following story illustrates a particularly dangerous type of internet fraud prevalent in the real estate industry.
A Northern California family’s experience buying their dream home turned into a nightmare when they became victims of a real estate wire fraud scheme. The fraudsters intercepted emails between the buyers, their real estate agent, and the title company, and sent fraudulent wiring instructions to the buyers. On closing day, the buyers wired over $920,000.00, thinking the wire had been sent to the title company. Instead, their life savings went halfway across the world to the fraudsters’ bank account. Fortunately in this case the family eventually recovered their funds and were able to close on their dream home, but this should serve as a warning for anyone wiring funds for their home purchase. Fraudulently diverted funds cannot always be recovered.
Internet fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated in perpetrating their wire fraud schemes, so you need to always be careful when confirming the wire instructions you received are legitimate. Real estate wire fraud is on the rise in recent years, with more than $221 million in losses last year, according to the FBI’s 2019 Internet Crime Report.
This is why we will send our wiring instructions either via encrypted email or fax only, and you must call our office prior to wiring funds to verbally verify any wiring instructions that you receive from us. As in the story outlined above, in some cases even emails that look like they are coming from a title company could be fraudulent.
Please call us at (703) 737-3800 if you have any questions about wiring cash-to-close funds or if Loudoun Commercial Title can be of any other assistance.
If you feel you have been a victim of internet fraud, call 911 immediately or visit the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
How one family’s nightmare illustrates the growing threat of real estate wire fraud
August 6, 2020
By: John L. Mashack
Recently a man in Florida allegedly drove off the dealership lot with a Porsche he purchased using a cashier’s check for $139,203.05 that he printed on his home computer. He was caught the next day trying to purchase nearly $62,000.00 in watches using another fraudulent cashier’s check. This time the jeweler held on to the watches until the check could be verified as legitimate. This is a great example of the reason title companies cannot accept cashier’s or bank checks the day before or the day of closing.
A cashier’s check is a check that is written by a bank, drawn on the bank’s funds, and signed by a cashier at the bank. This contrasts with a certified bank check, which is written by the individual account holder and is drawn from their bank funds, but the bank guarantees that the individual’s bank account has the funds to cash the check and sets these funds aside until the check clears.
In the past these types of checks were treated as guaranteed funds that could be wired against once they posted to the recipient’s bank account the next business day. However, due to an increase in fraudulent cashier’s checks and certified bank checks, many banks have begun to hold these checks until they clear, which may take up to 5 business days. Earlier this year, our own bank advised us that it may take closer to 10 days for these checks to fully clear.
What this means is that as a practical matter, we can no longer accept cashier’s checks or certified bank checks for real estate closings, where we may not know the final amount that is due from the buyer/borrower and lender until the day before, or even the day of closing. Also, we are expected to remit payoffs, seller proceeds and other disbursements within a day after closing, which we cannot do on funds that have not cleared our account.
We hope this sheds light on our policy to accept only wires as cash to close for real estate closings. We will send an encrypted email with our wiring instructions at least 48 hours before your closing, which you will use to wire funds to our real estate escrow account. Due to the cyber security threat of fraudulent wire requests, we ask that you call our office prior to wiring funds to verbally verify any wiring instructions that you receive from us.
Please call us at (703) 737-3800 if you have any questions about cashier’s checks and wires, or if Loudoun Commercial Title can be of any other assistance.
Florida man buys Porsche with check printed from home computer
Florida man buys $140,000 Porsche with check printed from home computer
June 23, 2020
By: Robert M. Gordon, Executive Vice President
The Commonwealth of Virginia has increased its recordation costs effective July 1, 2020. For all purchase and sale transactions after July 1, 2020, a “Regional Congestion Relief Fee” is added on each Deed transferring or conveying real property, in the amount of $0.05 for each $100 or fraction thereof of consideration or assessed value. This affects the closer-in Northern Virginia counties-Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, City of Alexandria.
The existing WMATA Regional Transportation Improvement Fee of $0.15 per $100 or fraction thereof remains in place.
What this means is that the portion of transfer and recordation costs customarily paid by the Seller (Grantor) is increased from $0.15 per $100 to $0.20 per $100.
Some historical background:
In 2013 Virginia added to the long-standing Grantors tax of $0.05 per $100 or fraction thereof (i.e., $0.10 per $100 or 1/10 of 1%), a Regional Congestion Relief Fee of $0.15 per $100) to be utilized for highway transportation improvements in selected Northern Virginia counties. Large sums were raised and deployed for road improvements for a number of years until 2018, when the “Fee” was renamed the WMATA Regional Transportation Improvement Fee, and all funds were taken from roads and given to Metro (the “Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority” or “WMATA”). Now, in 2020 the $0.05 per hundred represents a return to some level of funding for road improvements in Northern Virginia.
Effective May 1, 2021 the WMATA Regional Transportation Improvement Fee will be reduced from $0.15 per $100 to $0.10 per $100 and the Regional Congestion Relief Fee will be increased from $0.05 per $100 to $0.10 per $100. In effect, the total combined amount of these two “Fees” will remain at $0.20 per $100 or fraction thereof.
If you have any questions about this, or if Loudoun Commercial Title LLC can be of assistance in any way, please contact Kate Gordon at kate@loudouncommercialtitle.com, or Bob Gordon at bob@loudouncommercialtitle.com, or call us at 703 737 3800.
June 30, 2015
If you’re in the market for a commercial or residential property, now is the time to call Loudoun Commercial Title, LLC. Find out how the settlement firm’s dynamic and detail-oriented approach ensures customer satisfaction with its work. And discover how the expert counsel of president and owner Robert M. Gordon can assist you with your transactional needs.
Loudoun Commercial Title, LLC specializes in the three services critical to the purchase or financing of a commercial or residential property: 1) due diligence, 2) settlement, and 3) title insurance.
Loudoun Commercial Title’s website is designed to be as helpful as the firm itself. As Bob Gordon says, “We are always available to answer your questions about the settlement process.”