Title Company Resources in a Fractional Interest Dispute, with Kevin Sayles

0:02 Welcome to the Fractional Interest Podcast. I'm Bill Gross, your host. I'm really excited to have today a guy whose not is just one of the leading title representatives and title resources in California, in Southern California particular. This guy was so good, he actually was giving classes to attorneys for, continuing education, sharing with them the strategies to avoid common mistakes in probate and the best practices to get the best results and fractional interest. We are often problems happen. How do we resolve them? So excited to have Kevin Sayles, a longtime friend and colleague and business vendor. Kevin, thanks for joining us again today.

0:35 No problem. I'm glad to be here. So I think oftentimes people don't think of something as being a fractional interest dispute, but so many probate cases involve you know property that wasn't thought out properly when it was distributed or somebody died, meaning nobody planned ahead properly and we end up with multiple owners in many cases with no agreement or format. How often do you see this happening in your practice?

1:00 I see a lot of fractional interest situations. I see a lot of transactions where maybe the mom and dad had the property previously, they've now passed away, and however many kids they have, and sometimes it's their kids plus their grandkids, you know, maybe even great grandkids, they all come into play, which breaks up the interest. I think recently I had a portfolio of three properties referred to me by an attorney where there's a dispute over the percentages because there was deeds and then somebody died and they deed them but they had three parties with three percentages and then the wording was imprecise.

1:35 Yeah. When it went from one deed to the next. It was really interesting just for those watching that the other pre the other title company had given a prelim that claimed to answer the question who owns how much subject to several unrecorded uninsured deeds whereas your company said well we have no idea of knowing because there's these uninsured deeds we need to figure out what all those mean and I think that was just interesting where you could say you were wrong you could say you were right but what was clear is you both end up in the same spot which is sometimes these things there is no answer. That's why we have a court case, right?

2:10 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And one of the things that I see often where that maybe people outside of title don't always understand why it's done this way. But when there's let's say there's some deeds that say, "Oh, I have a third." And then there's some other deeds that don't say what my percentage is. Or maybe deeds get mixed up and then this one is a sixth and this one's a third. I even had one some years ago where all the deeds said a third. You know, it's a third, a third, a third. Then they changed it to decimal points. So instead of when the person with a third ended up deeding a six, you know, one half of their third to one person, half a third to the other, instead of going one sixth and one six, they switch it to decimals. Anytime as a title company we see either it could potentially be unclear or they're just changing some deeds have a percentage some deeds don't or they go from percentages to a joint tenancy and then back to percentages or I'm sorry go to a joint tenancy and then to a tenancy in common even though you know if you and I were joint tenants it would appear that we each own 50% if we split it to tenancy in common when those things are not explicit on the deed when it is not clear absolutely as to what they're deeding Then we typically will just say these parties, you know, all 10 of them as their interest appears of record because

3:26 Right we're kind of taking our hands out of it saying we're not going to argue all of this. I've had countless cases where it's a joint tenancy. You know, John and Jane, they're joint tenants. They're siblings, let's say, but they were joint. But they always knew that Jane put up 60% of the money. She always paid 60% of the bills. You know, to them, they had a 60/40 split. But with joint tenancy, there is no percentage split. So later when they end up doing something that severs that joint tenancy and now they're tenants in common. Then you know the people the family knows it's 6040 but it's not on the public record. So as a title company that's an area where we stay out of we don't determine what percentage someone has unless it's explicit on the deed and it's consistent on all the deeds that happen in the chain.

4:14 Yeah. I think that, you know, sometimes title insurance is a misnomer because you're really trying to research the right answer. You're insuring in case you make a mistake. You're not insuring uncertainty. You're not going to say, "Well, it looks to us like it's more likely this way, so we'll insure it." Like, you know, buying a car or a house. You really has to has to meet up. One of the I think most misunderstood risks in real estate are uninsured deeds because oftenimes people say, "Well, I can just deed it from here to there. Oh, I can just deed it in the trust. Well, I can just Well, yeah, we can all do a lot of things.

4:43 Yeah. And you probably could get it recorded though even that's getting a little harder than it used to be. Even the county now looks at things a little more carefully than they used to. But at the end of the day, talk about the impact of a deed that doesn't have title insurance. Let's say a typo on the address or what might look like a typo or might not be a typo on the address or the name or an initial or percentages. What happens when you have an uninsured deed and somebody said, "Well, here I have a deed and it's recorded. You have to count it." Well, you guys don't really do that unless it's been insured. Correct. Yeah. So, there's a couple things. So, when there's an uninsured deed, the bottom line comes down to this. The fact that a deed is uninsured, I'm going to talk about two categories. I'll talk about uninsured deeds and then I'll talk about deeds created by either the homeowner or let's say someone who is not a professional that knows exactly what they're doing. I'll cover those two categories. So, on an uninsured deed, the whole definition of that, what it means is a deed that records without title insurance. So, it means there's no refinance transaction happening simultaneously with that deed and there's no sale transaction. Now, here's what that's all about. You know, I've I ask this all the time and I've been in a room with, you know, 60 agents and they, you know, wonder about uninsured. Why is it a big thing? But then I'll ask them this question. How many of you have ever had a property given to you outright for free? You know, one person out of 60 will raise their hand and that one person is like, "Yeah, my grandma died and she left the property to me in her trust." Okay. So, the point with an uninsured deed is people don't normally just give properties to other people.

6:15 Most people that own a home bought that home somewhere, right? You buy it's on the market, you buy it, and because it's a sale transaction, it would be an insured deed. So when there's an uninsured deed, the whole stigma about that term is we just need to verify that it was a full conveyance, that there's no money attached to it, that there's not something else expected from this. I have a an open transaction right now where there was two people on title. They were in some sort of relationship. They broke up. One party deed to the other party. But in doing that, the first party that deed to the other party was expecting funds and they we're now we're doing a transaction. They are actually going to get paid out of this sale because the deal was always I'll give you my portion whatever I have, but I expect to get this payment. And so with an uninsured deed, we want to make sure that it was intended to be a full conveyance, that it was meant to be given over to the other party and that there's no strings attached. You're not expecting some funds or expecting some other anything, whatever that may be. The classic story, perfect story that I experienced, this was one of one of the deals that I was working on, gosh, probably at least 15, 18 years ago. There's a deed from father to son. And if you look at that seems normal, right? Okay, if I'm going to give the property to anybody, it's going to be to a family member. But when we got the backstory of what went on, this is what went on. Dad was in a coma.

7:41 While he's in the coma, his wife dies. The day he So, he gets out of the coma and the day he gets released from the hospital, his son has him sign a power of attorney. Turns out the document was not a power of attorney. It was a deed. He had the dad sign a deed to himself. And so the dad, first of all, doesn't know he's signing a deed. He thinks he's signing a power of attorney. Second of all, you know, imagine you wake up from a coma and while you're in a coma for 30 days, your wife passes away. Naturally, when you know, after coming out of a coma, you're probably highly medicated. So, who knows what his actual state of mind was with the loss of his wife, with the fact that he's you know, on some sort of medication. I'm sure he didn't know what he was signing. And so it records it's an uninsured deed. When the time came to go get that uninsured deed affidavit, meaning go back to the person who gave you this property and have them swear that they knew what they were signing, they meant to be a full conveyance you blah. The father read it. He's like, "No, I didn't give the property to my son. What are you talking about? I didn't sign any deed. Only thing I signed is I signed a power of attorney." Then he later found out his son had swindled him. So that's a classic case because on the on the outside it looks like it's normal. Dad knew mom passed away. Need to do something to make sure my property's taken care of. Let me give it to my son.

8:57 That was the story we got and turns out that was not the true story. So, an uninsured deed, the whole stigma on an uninsured deed, a deed that records without title insurance, is that we want to know that it was meant to happen. So, let me let me give a couple of examples. Have we resolved it without going back to that party? So, divorces, when there's a divorce, we almost never have to go back to the other family member because in the divorce decree, it will say Jane gets the property or John gets the property. They provide a copy of that divorce decree, we see, okay, now it makes sense. There's a story behind why one party did it to the other and this makes perfect sense. So, anytime there's some order or some other document that helps, I had one about a year ago where there was an agreement. They were business partners and they agreed, I'm going to give you this house and you give me that house and they had an agreement and so we have an uninsured deed from one party to another. We're like, what's this all about? They told us, oh, we were business partners, blah. They showed us the agreement. Enough said. You don't have to go back to that party. But so that's what that's what the whole deal is with an uninsured deed is it's a fraud prevention thing. We have to make sure, you know, most people don't get a property for free. We have to make sure that there's not some strings attached or something else going on and that the party that gave the property knew what they were doing. So that's the uninsured deed. Now, let me talk about deeds created because I kind of cringe a little bit every time I run into a scenario like this where the family is recording deeds on their own.

10:18 Okay. In my situation, when I need to make a change on my property, I do the deed myself, right? I've been working in this industry since 1993. I know exactly what I'm doing. I've even done deeds on my own properties in other states because I know how to draw the document. I know what goes on it. But the average person does not always know that. I looked at two deeds today, this very day, both drawn up by attorneys. Both were grossly incorrect. And one of them so much so that they have to go to court. They put the complete wrong legal description on the property. If I put the wrong legal description on the deed, that deed does not affect the correct property. It affects a different property. Or if I don't own that other property, then it affects no property. So, two deeds just today, both that were drafted by law firms, and both of them were grossly incorrect. So, why do I say that? Because people should always have a professional draft their deeds. And when I see the homeowners drawing the one of the most common reasons that I see errors in people's chain of title is because they started doing deeds on their own.

11:31 Had a property sale. This was several this was I don't know how many years. This was pre-COVID. This was probably 10 years ago or at least eight years ago. And there was a trust. We're doing a trust sale. There was a trust. Turns out I know the attorney that did the trust and great attorney, like they wouldn't make these mistakes on the deed. So, we're dealing with this property and there's all these errors and they're asking me, "Well, we sold this other property in Apple Valley. Why is this property in LA a problem and the one in Apple Valley wasn't a problem?" Like almost to blame me as the title company, like you guys are messing up. So, I pulled the deed on that property in Apple Valley. Well, guess what? The deed on the property in Apple Valley was prepared by the attorney that did the trust. That deed was correct. The deed they did on the property in LA was prepared by the homeowner. That deed was not correct. And I could just imagine the conversation back then. The conversation with the attorney was, "Hey, attorney, you're drawing up my trust. I have two properties." And you know, there's probably a cost to do two deeds. Most attorneys will give you one deed with the trust. The person was probably like, "Yeah, I don't want to pay for the extra one. I'll do the extra one myself." And they did it wrong and it caused problems on their transaction. So, for me, you know, people doing their own deeds and not using a professional, an escrow officer or a law firm that knows what they're doing with drafting the document, when they don't do that, it opens the door for issues. But, the errors on the deeds are probably as big of an issue as, I would say, uninsured deeds are.

12:57 Just for the record, I will say I only refer people to estate plan attorneys who will prepare the deeds, get them notarized, and get them recorded because I feel like if you're paying for an estate plan, you're paying for the result. You're not paying for the for the paperwork. And I know they're trying to disagree and I respect that opinion, but for me as a real estate agent, customers never come to me to say, "I just want the plan designed and I can take it from there." They want it done for them. And I've se, you know, I make a living on mistakes in those deeds just like you do. So, I see it all the time and I don't want people to do that.

13:28 To talk about the uninsured deeds though, seems to me as a real estate professional when we do a transaction purchase or when I was doing loans, refinances, you get title insurance, you have an application for insurance. The customer has to fill out information, statement of identity, information you can verify, you know, use to verify their credit, their legal status. And then I imagine also you know, you get a preliminary title report, but that's preliminary. You get the report,

13:54 There's some action items there, you start working on it that the deed that's being done, the refinance or the or the purchase deed is scrutinized by your

14:03 Operations at some level, right? The person and the property. We have an uninsured deed. In a lot of ways, it really just hasn't been looked at by anybody. And it doesn't mean inherently it's wrong, but it does mean that nobody took the time to look at it other than the preparer, maybe the county, and recording it. And so it's not uncommon when I do a purchase or in the old days with refinances, but more with purchases now where we get from you or the escrow through you, hey, this property has a deed. We need to figure this out. We need to get this guy to sign off that we need this ex-wife. What's the story? Is there, you know, you have divorce decree? Do you have this? Do you have that? That there's some scrutiny to it that's just not done. And I think that when people believe a transaction is completed and they find out it's not completed, that's it just ups the emotion and the problems because oftentimes these things aren't discovered till you're already in escrow. People agents don't pull pre before they list a property. They do it when they open escrow 7 10 days in. Money's been deposited, inspections are done, appraisals are done. Hey, we had this deed from grandma 50 years ago. Was uninsured, but really this guy's own the property. Grandma's heir, her ex-husband owns the property, right? So how much of you of this do you think is the preparation? How much is just it just wasn't scrutinized? Because you guys catch attorneys you catch esc mistakes on regular transactions.

15:22 Yeah. Regularly. I mean it's not all the time but in your bes the size your operations every day. I'm sure deed gets rejected by the county or gets or is done incorrectly and you guys have to correct it afterwards. So talk about how much of it's just the scrutinization process is missed on the uninsured deeds and that just makes them like a potential liability that you never really resolved. Do you have the insurance?

15:44 Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. I mean, when there's an uninsured deed, it hasn't been reviewed. Obviously, look, when if I sell my house to you, Bill, then the title company at the time of that transaction, they're looking at it. They're verifying my identity.

15:58 Lawyers Title, my favorite title company. Go ahead. Yes. Yes, indeed. They're verifying my identity, they do all the verification, then when the property goes over to you, that's an insured deed because it closed with title insurance and you don't have any issue going forward. But if instead I'm just like, "Oh, you know what, Bill? You're a great guy. I've always loved working with you. I'm just giving you this property and there's a deed that's not insured." Well, the next time you go to do a transaction, the title company's got to look at that. They go, "Wait, why was this property just given to Bill? Let's make sure it was all done on the up and up." Right? And so it just hasn't been looked at or reviewed yet. Now, the key is doing that ahead of time. I this is man, this is so appropriate, some of these conversations. Another thing that happened today, an agent that I have not worked with before in the past, she was referred by someone and she was very happy to meet me this and that. And we opened up the order. We opened up the order a couple days ago. The prelim was completed today. And then I called her and, you know, talked about, hey, here's some issues. Blah. There's no issues. Why this one was clean as a whistle, but I but I called her to let her know, "Hey, here's how your prelim is." And she mentioned to me, "Oh, I've never had the prelim done ahead of time." But to me, it just makes the most sense because now she's going to market the property. Let's say it takes 30 days to market the Let's just say 15 days to market the property. They get an escrow accepted. If you open the order, then by the time the prelim is done, let's say the prelim's done on escrow day four or five, if it's a 15-day escrow, you're 10 days from closing and now you find a problem. So, I always tell people, look, when your client signs the listing agreement, we want them to sign because prelims cost us title companies money. I always estimate between $150 and $350 just to do the prelim based on the work that's done.

17:43 Once you have a signed agreement with that seller and they commit to selling with you, then we should open the we should open the title order. On situations like probate cases, you know, maybe they sign up with the attorney, they can't list the property yet because they don't have letters. Well, still once they sign up with that attorney and the attorney's committed and they're involved, you should be getting your prelim because you don't want to have an issue that take that comes up later. Look, right now there's an issue with IRS liens because the government shutdown is going on and if the IRS if we need a payoff from the IRS, how fast is that payoff going to come?

18:15 It's not right. So, wouldn't you want to know about it and we can try to work out some solutions with more time rather than, oh, we're closing next week and now there's a problem. So, certain liens, you know, especially city liens, government liens, they take longer than a lot of the banks, especially the bigger banks, if escrow calls them today or reaches out to them today, they're going to have their payoff in a couple of days. Some banks take longer, but usually like a lot of the bigger banks, they'll the payoff gets turned around really fast. But when it comes to like the government or a judgment creditor or something like that, a lot of times these take two or three weeks to get a payoff. Why not look at that prelim early on and resolve this situation? So, I know I'm talking about payoffs, but imagine if you we didn't know that eight months ago the seller got the property from someone else,

19:01 Right? And now we've got to go back and say, "Hey, was that an up and up transaction? What happened with that? How did that go down?" And we need to get a signature from them. It's better to have that way in advance rather than, you know, when you're in escrow or looking to close.

19:15 So, one of the things, one of the ways to resolve a fractional interest. Obviously, people can make an agreement and buy one another out. That's the easy way. They can create a tenant common agreement and use it to govern it. They can put into an LLC, use that to govern it. But oftentimes, you know, people getting these fractional interests aren't sophisticated or don't have experience. Often times there's emotional baggage because I find so many of them are, you know, you know, a father remarried and so you have children from the first marriage, the second, they hate each other.

19:49 And so that leads to a whole area called partition actions where in California, now it's not true everywhere, but in California for sure, we have a very robust process that basically says any minority owner following a certain procedure can force to sell the property at fair market value and get their percentage. And the other owners can buy them out at fair market value or go along with the sale. Do you get involved those transactions? Because I imagine those are pretty sticky and I imagine they're, you know, contested and everybody has their own Realtor®, everybody has their own escrow and title company they're fighting for. So, talk to me a little bit about partition actions and how they're kind of unique piece of the business. If you've done any of them.

20:25 Yeah, they definitely are a unique piece of the business. You know, one owner suing the other owner and forcing a sale. And it's funny. I always, you know, the partition action, it's kind of like the way divorce is looked at in California. I believe I don't know for sure, but I think there's some states where you have to give a reason for the divorce, right? And maybe you have to do that on some paperwork here. But the bottom line is the judge doesn't ever go, "Oh, you guys want this divorce?" No, you have to stay together. Stay together because that's not a good reason for a it's like the divorce. It's not like I wonder if I'm going to win and get divorced if I was filing for a divorce. Thank God I'm not, but it's not like that. The judge knows, okay, if one doesn't want to be married even though the other one does, then it's going to be a divorce, right? It's kind of the same way with the partition. You know, there I've seen so many cases where there's multiple heirs. Let's say there's five heirs and one is like, I want my money. We all inherited the property and the trust distributed the property to us and now all five of us on the property, but I don't want to own this property with you guys. I want my one-fifth of this property in cash. And so then they bring a partition lawsuit. An attorney explained to me this way, because I'm not an attorney. I don't profess to be. An attorney explained to me this way. She said she was in court. They were starting a partition action. And the judge, this is what she said.

21:42 The judge said to her, "Okay, are you guys going to decide who sells the property or do you want me to decide who?" And she basically told them, "Go out in the hall, get it settled, and tell me what you guys are going to go do." Because the judge is not going to say, "Oh, no. Everybody, we're keeping the property. You all have to keep the property.

22:01 They're not ever going to say that, right? That's some of the family situations I've seen. I mean, yeah. I one situation years ago, the heir who was running everything, ran didn't kill the person, but ran into them with their car like it was assault. I think they probably end up getting arrested because they were trying to get them arrested. You know, the fighting can get so contentious. The best solution is, you know what, sell the property. Each of you go your own way. So if one of those parties in that if one of those let's say one-fifth owners wants to buy it and buy the rest of them out by all means usually they're like yeah that's no problem. We'll do that. You know if fair market value is a million dollars you pay the million dollars minus your portion and you get the property. But if none of the owners can buy it then they sell it and they each walk away with their own separate check. They do get contentious, but they get to a point where they're resolved. Either they get to a point where everybody agrees or there's some court order ordering the property sold. Sometimes it gets to the point where there's some fiduciary that comes in to take over things or a receiver. But generally speaking, you know, the way that this attorney was explaining to me is like we never litigate though. They don't actually go into full litigation. She said almost always they get settled before because the judge is like

23:21 The end result's going to be that we sell the property. So, do you guys want to figure it out or do you want me to just force you? Do you want to sell the property and pay legal fees or just sell the property? You know, I've interviewed I've been involved in a couple and they hit the same format. I've interviewed two attorneys and they say 90% of the time is what I've experienced which is you have a dispute. You're just a minority owner who just wants to be cashed out. The majority owner enjoys the property and maybe has control of the property physically which they're not necessarily entitled to. That's another legal issue and they don't want to sell. And so I as I always advise them, you know, legally they have to sell. There's no there is no endgame that says they get to keep the property and force you to be a minority owner. So the process is you tell them this, then you have the strongly worded attorney letter that outlines you're going to lose and pay our attorney's fees for forcing this action and they go along with and they file the lawsuit and 90% of the time it folds in. They agree and there's a process everybody agrees on to sell the property, but they both they both had to pay attorney's fees. Thousands of dollars kind of wasted. So that's why I did this podcast was I hope to avoid some of those by a avoiding fractional interests and then b when you have one to work a way out and just to go back to what you said previously. You know I almost hesitate to have you as my guest though I've had you on numerous times on my podcast. I think you're my most common guest most prolific I guess that I really enjoy because you I learn so much from you. But I almost hesitate because if every Realtor® just did two things. If they a just ordered a prelim as soon as a probate was open or they had a listing and or b used the service that you offer something 247 I don't know the name of but there's like an app you gave me access to as your customer that I go online and research the history of property but I pull the documents and generally the documents are there. If not then I there's like an online thing and I request them. If every Realtor® you just did that, like 90% of these title problems would just go away because you'd be working them before they were

25:23 In es I should say this way 90% of the title problems in escrow would go away because you want to open escrow until you resolve the problem. And so in fractional interest, I think that one of the things that is critical is that attorneys when they drop documents need to get the right legal chain of title and check it. And I don't know can So that brings me this it's a long-winded way to ask this question. When there are nonpurchases and non-refinance transactions being done, deeds are done by attorneys, let's say in a settlement or in a distribution that normally don't require title insurance. Can they pay for title insurance so that the scrutiny is provided to it to make sure that it's done right and it's insured and they have insurance that it was actually done right down the road?

26:07 Yeah. So, you know, every title company's different. I can only speak to what our current policies are. Generally speaking, I'll say it this way. It's a case-byase basis. So, I have to get some of the circumstances and understand what's going on in and the issue is this. If the property is in dad's name, trustee of the trust, the moment dad dies is the transfer in ownership. So legally by California law, the beneficiaries who are receiving that property are already the owners. That's why they reassess based on the date of death, right? So that's what the revenue tax code says. Date of death is a change in ownership. So now we're providing title insurance to someone who's already an owner. That's not something we really want to be doing. That's why we as a title company, we're always recording document. But I and we've gone back and forth. There's been times when we did ensure let's say a distribution from a trust, stuff like that. And there's been times where we didn't. But right now we will do it on a case by case basis. One of the transactions I was referring to earlier that I was working on today is a distribution where one party who's getting a distribution from this trust is buying a larger portion than what they were supposed to automatically receive and they had a kind of a dispute. I don't know if it was like a litigation but they kind of had a dispute. They came up with a settlement agreement said okay look we'll buy this portion of it and so that's what they're doing. And we're ensuring that because they are buying it. They did pay money for that. We're ensuring that. But there can be certain circumstances where the distribution is happening and we will ensure it. But it's a case- by case basis. Having said that, when there's a court order, you don't really I mean, look, I'd love to sell everyone title insurance, right? That's how I make my living, but I don't want to I don't sell people things they don't really need, right? When there's a court order ordering that this party gets the property, like a d a final distribution from a probate case, you don't really need title insurance for that because that order becomes the document that transfers. Now,

28:04 If the if there's a problem in the order or it's not clear about something or it's something's incorrect, I'm not going to speak to that. That's a different story. But generally speaking, I look at great orders all day, every day. And a good order that properly distributes a property from a trust or I'm sorry from a probate estate or it could be from a trust. You know, all they have to do is record the order. They don't need to do any more any more work with that.

28:30 Now, you have a court order like say on a probate case though that then the administrator has to sign the if they're selling the property has to sign a granted. You have both a grant deed and then you have the order I guess letters of authority and if it's a court confirmation you have the actual court order that goes along with at that point to verify that.

28:51 Yeah. So all those things court orders are great to have. I had I remember I had a lender give me a hard time about a property. I said this is a court order like the judge ordered.

28:59 Yeah. Now they can do whatever they want. I mean really judges can sign almost anything. They're subject to being over appealed or overturned but judge can sign anything they want. But in our world, as far as you and I deal with on a daily basis, if you have a court order, the property's been transferred legally and you're pretty good shape. So,

29:17 Yeah. And I would say this, I don't know how many orders I've reviewed. I'm going to throw out a thousand. I'm sure it's 10 times that because I look at them like on a almost a daily basis, but I've only seen one. There was one order that I was like, "Wow, how did the judge even sign that one?" It was a it was an order from a divorce decree purporting to void a loan, but there was no notification to the lender and you can't void a loan without a quiet title action and this was just a divorce decree. So, I don't know if it was like a new judge or someone didn't understand or someone in there didn't realize. I don't know. Something was awry for sure because this you can't remove, you know, California law says to remove a real estate interest, you have to have a quiet title action. And this one, there was a real question on jurisdiction on if they had the power to do it. And there was no notice to that lender. So, that's it was just wrong in all the ways. But, that's one out of I don't know how many thousand court orders I've seen in my life. You know, it seems to me that in all businesses and particularly real estate and particularly title, there are two types of successful practitioners. They're the ones who have huge marketing and do what I would kind of call the cream of the crop, the easy cases over and over again. They spend a lot of time to get that business. But in my experience, aren't much value to me, you know, as a practitioner in getting my business through because everybody can take the easy cases.

30:41 Yeah. And I don't want to be that person either. You know, the other side is the person who is the expert, who goes deep, who and this I can tell about you. You and I are similar. You enjoy talking about these problems, right? When you get an agent or an attorney complaining about these problems, you know they're not the right one for you because they just want the easy cases. And in my experience, everything gets harder every day. Like every day there's new laws, new regulations, new problems, new economic difficulties, new this, that. And if you embrace there's a you know frame you know embrace the suck in sports they say sometimes or just embrace the fact that it's hard then you'll deal with it and then learn these intricacies and so those on this podcast I would urge you to talk to Kevin but understand that this is not for the meek. This is yes he'll take the easy cases and yes he'll come back to you with his problems but I would say take him as an example and as a colleague and a mentor to learn that the real value is learning the hard edge cases for your customer so that when that rare case comes back a second time you can help your customer you can help the attorney you can help whoever is involved in the deal by that knowledge. Now tell me, how did you what was it that caused you to kind of go down this rabbit hole of being a title rep who's an expert in this stuff? Cuz most your colleagues, I'm sure you know this, they don't they don't get involved with this at all.

31:58 Yeah. I think one probably the biggest thing is that I'm built that way. You know, I'm built where I want to really understand something and know it to a deep level. And so I started my career in banking. I was a lender and I had this lending experience. Experience. I went to the corporate office, became a trainer, and that's how I ended up getting hired at the first title company. They were looking for someone with lending experience. They were looking for a unicorn, and I was that unicorn. They were looking for someone with lending experience and had been certified in these different training programs to be able to create training material. I thought I was going to the company that I went to was owned by Countrywide at the time. It was called Land Safe Title Back in the day. I thought I was going to interview as a loan manager at Countrywide. Turns out they called me in to interview for the training manager at the title company. So, having said all that, I went there. Well, what I learned when I got there is some of my banking experience, we did loans at the bank. We did for some certain types of loans, we did our own escrow process. I didn't know there was a company out there called escrow that did that. I we just learned to do it on ours. We had to do our own closing statements. And I and we had to underwrite our files. We had to review our prelims and clear liens to be able to get the loan close. So when you when you do that stuff and that's how you make your living, you become at least me, it became very important that I know how to deal with it. And then when you see how an underwriter makes an incorrect decision or doesn't consider all the factors, then you start to realize, oh, so if I know this, if I know the loan program, let's say, and I know how this fits into that loan program, someone else might miss it. I can get more deals done because I can show them how it still works, right?

33:36 Yes. And that's the mentality, you know, this is the first job out of college. That's the mentality I learned in lending. And so thankfully I had a I didn't make very good money working for that bank for that first bank, but the training was phenomenal. And so thankfully that's kind of carried through to what I do now. And I learned years ago that I back in back in the early 2000s, I was working with someone who started in title before I was born.

34:02 So you talk about he has way more experience than me, tons more. But there was an issue and he had the law wrong on that issue.

34:11 And so, you know, here I am like I'm not going to go in there like I'm all knowing because this guy's been he started two years before I was born entitled. I'm like this guy knows probably more than I'll he's probably forgotten more than I'll ever learn, right?

34:24 Yet I knew that the information I had was correct and talk and this person was the decision maker at that title company. Talked with him, got the situation approved because he checked it. He said, "You know, you feel so strongly about this." And he checked it and he found like, "Oh, you're actually correct on that." We got the deal approved and we got the deal closed. And so for me, that was a great reinforcement that you know what, everyone doesn't always know. And so,

34:49 If I do the research, if I learn, if I know the scenario, and if I if I'm not 110% sure on something, I'm always going to find out because like you said, things change all the time. Things are different now than they were before. There's always new laws and so you know I guess it's like a never say die like let me make sure let me figure out the solution. Let me let me find the small little loophole to be able to get the yes because that's what I get paid for. I get paid for deals closing. You know thankfully I'm in the part of this job where I have one job to close transactions. You know there's another side of our business that prevents risk. Not that I do anything risky, right? Because I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to do that to our company. But point being, my job is to find the way we can close it.

35:37 And as long as we do that within our risk profile, then we're good to go. I think you confirmed the career advice I usually give young people, which is your first job out of college. You should look at like you're getting a graduate degree, but they're paying you something. Even if it's next to nothing, minimum wage or whatever, you're learning and they're paying you. Whereas in college, you have to pay to learn.

35:57 Yeah. Yeah. And in some ways, my first real estate job was working for a bank that paid us very little per loan. And so my colleagues at other mortgage companies could do two or three loans a month and I had to do 20 to make the same money. But by having to do 20, I learned so much in that period of time. I was there for about a year. I did I did more loans than they did in five 10 years.

36:18 Yeah. And so I knew guidelines, I knew underwriting, I knew problems. So then I left and went to a company paid me more per deal. And I think the same is true for most of us. So if we you have a high volume and you learn a niche really narrowly, you can then take that someplace else and get paid and make good and again the pay is a reflection of the value for other people. So all these tunnelers you're doing are helping people like me get paid and helping my customers get their equity. So again, it's not just about you getting paid, it's about you being more valuable to your customers so that you get paid, I think.

36:47 Yeah. Yeah. You know, Bill, what you said is so true and I have echoed that to many people that were getting started in this business. You know, at the what you said about working in banking and it so very true. You know, when you were in banking, you probably looked at more tax returns in a year than one of your friends at the, you know, at a at a broker or wherever looked at in three years. And so,

37:12 Five years, 10 years, for sure. That volume just really educates. Yeah. So, I love it. That's so true. Yeah, that's for all of us. And I find that with attorneys, too, that so many attorneys came through some niche business and then got their law license or had a law license, but they previously worked in some niche that they learned really well. And as a result of that, they applied those two together. And I think for all of us, career advice for me always is learn something and do a lot of something. Let the big company pay you. And they always pay you. They always train you. I remember my first job out of college was Hughes Aircraft Company. They would pay for any training I wanted on computers, technology, manufacturing. I was in the purchase side, business. It was amazing the education I got for free while I worked there. I was underpaid, but I was getting paid to learn at the time. So, look, fractional interest is obviously a very narrow niche. Yet very interesting and it's only unimportant if until you have a transaction, then it becomes everything in the world. Kevin, you're a great resource. I really appreciate having you on. I appreciate having you in my business. For those who want more Kevin Sayles in their life, and you all should, I have below his contact information as well as you can go to his website and see his handsome picture as well as get that information. Feel free to reach out to me if I can help you reach Kevin. Kevin, thank you again so much for educating our industry, educating me, and helping me with my business and helping everybody else who's listening today.

38:32 Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And for the rest of you, this is the Fractional Interest Podcast. We do an episode every week where we talk to attorneys or vendors on how to deal with fractional interest whether it be in a private case or any other real estate related transaction. I have a paper I put together on how you value fractional interests in real estate because you don't get the same value if you only own a percentage as the full and it varies by product type and situation. If you're interested in that, reach out to me. More glad to talk to you about that. It's not something I just give out to anybody, but I'd love to have a personal relationship with you and talk about what your business is and see if that's something that's of value for you in your practice. If I can help any way, reach out. I'm at Bill Gross Probate on social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.