Mortgage Foreclosure & Refinance Resource

A federal judge has certified a consumer class action suit against Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Co., brought by homeowners who claim they were overcharged for title insurance when they refinanced, because they were never told that they qualified for a discounted premium. At issue in all of the cases are claims by the homeowners that their entitlement to a statutorily discounted premium should have been detected by the insurer during its title search.

The plaintiffs lawyers, led by attorney Steven A. Schwartz of Chimicles & Tikellis in Haverford, Pa., argue that property owners are entitled to the discounted rates whenever the title search, which the insurer is required by law to conduct, reveals events in the chain of title that “would lead any reasonable title agent to conclude that a prior title policy was issued.”

The suit alleges that anytime Commonwealth Land Title’s agents discovered in the title search that an insurance purchaser had refinanced the property within the past three or 10 years, they should have known that a prior insurance policy had been issued and that the discounts should have been automatically applied. The Pennsylvania ruling joins a growing list of courts that have certified similar class actions in Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and Ohio.