Anyone who obtains title insurance, whether as an owner or a lender, should be aware of a recent abrupt and significant change in title insurance practices across the country. Title companies have recently stated that they will no longer delete creditors’ rights exclusions from, or add affirmative creditors’ rights coverage as an endorsement to, any of their issued title policies.

Buyers of, and lenders upon, distressed California real property can sleep a little better following a recent U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision: In the Matter of Craig L. Tippett, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 18914 (September 4, 2008). In Tippett, the Court upheld the California bona fide purchaser statute against a federal preemption claim and declined to find a violation of the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay provision in order to affirm an unauthorized real property sale by the Chapter 7 debtor.

In 2006, the Colorado Legislature passed HB 06-1387, which produced significant changes to Colorado’s foreclosure laws. Although the majority of the changes were to take effect July 1, 2007, the 2007 Legislature passed HB 07-1157, which made additional changes and pushed back the effective date for many of the 2006 modifications to January 1, 2008. This alert summarizes the most significant changes that will affect both lenders and borrowers and provides a revised timeline for the foreclosure process after January 1, 2008.

SUMMARY OF CHANGES 

Directors and officers of Delaware corporations face no liability to corporate creditors from direct claims for breach of fiduciary duty, under the Delaware Supreme Court’s recent ruling in North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation, Inc. v. Gheewalla, (May 18, 2007) (“North American Catholic”).