Senate Bill No. 200
(By Senators Minard and Dempsey)
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[Introduced January 18, 2006; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §46A-6K-2 of
the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended; and to amend said code by adding thereto a
new section, designated §46A-6K-6, all relating to requiring
"settlement agents" to perform particular duties in loan
settlement transactions; and expanding the definition of
settlement agent to include business entities.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §46A-6K-2 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted; and that said code be amended by adding
thereto a new section, designated §46A-6K-6, all to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 6K. GOOD FUNDS SETTLEMENT ACT.
§46A-6K-2. Definitions.
(a) "Collected funds" or "good funds" means moneys used to
fund the disbursement of settlement proceeds deposited and irrevocably credited to a settlement agent's account.
(b) "Disbursement of loan funds" means the delivery of the
loan funds by the lender to the settlement agent in the form of:
(1) Cash;
(2) Wired funds;
(3) Certified check;
(4) Checks issued by the United States Treasury, the State of
West Virginia or an instrumentality of the United States or State
of West Virginia;
(5) Cashier's check or teller's check or other similar draft
or obligation of a federally insured bank, savings bank, savings
and loan association or credit union or of any holding company or
wholly owned subsidiary of the foregoing;
(6) Checks issued by a licensed lender qualified to do
business in West Virginia which has posted the surety bond required
by subsection (b), section four, article seventeen, chapter
thirty-one of this code;
(7) Checks issued by an insurance company licensed and
regulated by the West Virginia Insurance Commission, which checks
are drawn on a federally insured financial institution;
(8) Checks drawn on the escrow account of an attorney licensed
to practice law in West Virginia or on the escrow account of a real
estate broker licensed in West Virginia; or
(9) Personal check or checks in an aggregate amount not exceeding five thousand dollars per loan closing.
(c) "Disbursement of settlement proceeds" means the payment of
all proceeds of the transaction by the settlement agent to the
persons entitled thereto.
(d) "Lender" means any person regularly engaged in making
loans secured by deeds of trust to secure debt on West Virginia
real estate. A person is considered to be regularly engaged in
making loans if he or she makes more than five such loans in any
one calendar year.
(e) "Loan closing" means that time agreed upon by the
borrower, lender, seller, if applicable, and settlement agent when
the execution by the borrower and delivery of the loan documents to
the settlement agent occur.
(f) "Loan documents" means the note evidencing the debt due
the lender, the deed of trust, or mortgage securing the debt due to
the lender, and any other documents required by the lender to be
executed by the borrower as a part of the transaction.
(g) "Loan funds" means the gross or net proceeds of the loan
to be disbursed by or on behalf of the lender at loan closing.
(h) "Parties", as used in this subsection, means the seller,
purchaser, borrower, lender and the settlement agent, as
applicable.
(I) "Settlement" means the time when the settlement agent has
received the duly executed deed, loan funds, loan documents and other documents and funds required to carry out the terms of the
contract between the parties.
(j) "Settlement agent" means the person authorized by law to
be responsible for conducting the settlement and disbursement of
the settlement proceeds and includes any individual, corporation,
partnership or other entity conducting the settlement and
disbursement of loan proceeds.
§46A-6K-6. Duty of settlement agent.
The settlement agent shall cause recordation of the deed, the
deed of trust or mortgage, and any other documents required to be
recorded and shall cause disbursement of settlement proceeds within
one business day of settlement. A settlement agent may not
disburse any or all loan funds or other funds coming into its
possession prior to the recordation of any instrument, except: (I)
Funds received which are overpayments to be returned to the
provider of such funds; (ii) funds necessary to effect the
recordation of instruments; or (iii) funds which the provider of
such funds has by separate written instrument directed to be
disbursed prior to recordation of any instrument.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to require settlement agents
to perform particular duties in loan settlement transactions; this
bill also expands the definition of settlement agent to include
business entities.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.
§46A-6K-6 is new; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring
have been omitted.