Take THAT, JPMorganChase (and other subprime banks)

Old Republic National Title says that, due to questions about how foreclosures have been processed, it's going to stop offering title insurance on JPMorganChase residential foreclosure properties.

Several notes:
1. This is not automatically good news for homeowners in foreclosure; JPMC can always go shopping for another insurer.
2. Even if this does motivate JPMC, along with Bank of America, which has also stopped foreclosures do to processing legality issues, and any other financiers that may wind up in the same spot, it's still not necessarily long-term good news for homeowners. These financiers may simply tack the costs of additional work onto the foreclosure process. Or, it could cause other problems:

Mark P. Stopa, a lawyer in Florida who represents defaulting homeowners, said that if more title insurance firms began to shy away from insuring foreclosed properties, the entire housing market could suffer. The prices of foreclosures would plummet, because lenders will not issue a new mortgage without title insurance.

“Judges have to force banks to do foreclosures correctly,” Mr. Stopa said. But that would require a significant increase in staff, he said, and “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

So will I, Mark, so will I.

We've already seen, whether in a state that requires judicial proceedings for foreclosure or ones where individual homeowners have been fighting back, that judges haven't really done this.

And, state legislatures, if any of this additional staff means additional judicial/legal staff, aren't going to like that idea anyway.