Unlawful Inducement Rule

During 2010, the Department of Financial Affairs circulated several drafts of a rule to clarify the boundaries of permissible unlawful inducements under Florida Law.    The FLTA actively participated in a number of workshops and submitting multiple rounds of comments and redrafts for the Department’s consideration.   It was truly a collaborative effort and we were generally pleased with the final project.

Toward the end of 2010, partly in recognition of the upcoming change in elected leadership, the project was shelved.  Even though the draft rule was not formally adopted, it is an interpretation of existing statute that are already applicable to the title industry.   As such the draft rule provides some interesting insights into the thinking and approaches of the Department to enforcing these issues.

A copy of the December 1, 2010 (near final) draft is here.

The 2003 informational bulletin on the subject OIR-03-001 also provides some interesting insights.

During the summer of 2011, FLTA started work on a systematic redraft of the title insurance rules.   As part of that, we asked the Department to reconsider moving forward with an unlawful inducement rule, as a clear understanding of the legal boundaries is important for our members.