WINTER 2007

February 19 Date of Owners/Managers Meeting

Message from the Oklahoma Insurance Department

Answering Your License Renewal Questions

Questions have arisen regarding the deadline for license renewal. We wanted to clarify the requirement and notify you that the postmark date that has been allowed in the past will no longer apply after 11/30/06. We trust this notice will allow you time to address the change with any Oklahoma licensees who may sign up for one of the OLTA classes, especially any who take courses near the deadline for their license renewal.

The statute states the “The renewal of a license shall require a fee of double the current original license fee if the application for renewal is late or incomplete on the renewal deadline (1435.23*8)). The renewal deadline is the set expiration date, meaning that their renewal has to be in the possession of the Oklahoma Insurance Department either on or before the expiration date.

Example: An agent’s license expires 10/31/06 and they mail it to the Oklahoma Insurance Department on 10/30/06, but it is not received by the Department until 11/2/06. Their renewal is considered to be late regardless of the fact it was postmarked on 10/30/06.

We will accept postmark dates up to 11/30/06 to allow you an opportunity to communicate this change to Oklahoma licensees taking your courses. We are in the process of including this information on the Home Page of our Website, as well as in the Section for CE Providers.

Excerpted from an email from Katie Johnson
Continuing Education Coordinator
Oklahoma Insurance Department

President's Message

Dear OLTA Members:

It is hard to believe that my term serving as your president is almost over. I have enjoyed every minute of it! Catherine Blakley and I have been traveling around the state visiting our member’s offices. We plan to visit every member before the convention in April. One of us will call you in advance to check on a good time to stop by your office. The visits are short and informal – we just want to come by, introduce ourselves and see if there is anything the association can do to better serve you and your company. For those of you that we have visited, we have enjoyed meeting your employees and having a tour of your office. The hospitality you have all shown has been incredible! (Not to mention the coffee, donuts, cookies….)

The Regional Meetings are now over, and they were all very well attended. Thank you so much to our hosts in Bartlesville, Enid, Clinton, Durant and Guthrie. The meals and facilities were all great. This is one of the many things that make the OLTA so wonderful – everyone working together to help make our events such a success!!

The elections have now come and gone too. Congratulations to all the winners and especially to Jeff McMahan, Kim Holland and Jari Askins. THANK YOU to all of you who helped support your local and statewide candidates through personal donations and time given, as well as your donations to Okie-TiPAC.

I have attended the Missouri Land Title Association convention and also the ALTA convention so far this year. They were both great and very informative. OLTA is well respected by the other state associations and it is truly an honor for me to get the opportunity to represent you. Representatives from OLTA and ALTA met with the Oklahoma Insurance Department to discuss mortgage impairment products being issued in Oklahoma. These products are being issued on Oklahoma property without an abstract and title opinion and mostly on second mortgages/home equity lines of credit. We were able to provide the Insurance Department with some specific information and they will be conducting an investigation into the matter. If you have knowledge of these products being issued in your area, please forward that information to us.

You should have received information about the Owners/Managers meeting coming up February 19, 2007. Please mark your calendars and plan on attending this meeting. Representatives from the State Auditor & Inspector’s office and Oklahoma Insurance Department will be there to update us on what is going on in their offices. All active, dues-paid members will also be asked to vote on the proposed OLTA By-Laws amendment to reinstate the President-Elect position to the Board. There will also be a legislative training session by Clayton Taylor and a guest speaker from RightNow. Your attendance at this meeting is very important.

The OLTA 100th Anniversary Celebration and Annual Convention will be held this year from April 12th through 14th at the Sheraton Oklahoma City Hotel, next to the Bricktown entertainment district in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. The theme this year is “OLTA: A 100 Year Celebration!” If you haven’t attended before, this is one you won’t want to miss! You will be receiving the registration information shortly. The History Book committee has been working tirelessly to get the history book ready for unveiling at the convention. Thank you all for getting your information in to them. It will be a special keepsake for all of us.

The ice storm has been a terrible event for the State of Oklahoma and has affected many of you, our members. If the OLTA can offer any assistance to you in your offices or at home, please let us know what we can do. You are our family and we want to help each other in any way we can.


Respectfully,

Danita Francis, OLTA President

Notice:

We hope you enjoyed the new electronic format and delivery of the TitleGram. If you did not receive the last issue, please check with your IT person and update your computer spam software. There may be a problem with your computer blocking OLTA emails as spam.

We always need your help with new information and timely articles to include in the TitleGram, so do not hesitate to send us anything you think our members might find of value. Just email us at janloftis@coxinet.net. Thanks for your continued support of OLTA.

OLTA Convention Planning Underway

It’s that time again! The OLTA Annual Convention will be held this year from April 12th through 14th at the Sheraton Oklahoma City Hotel, next to the Bricktown entertainment district in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. The theme this year is “OLTA: A 100 Year Celebration!” President Danita Francis and her convention committee members Catherine Blakley, Mary Ann Nelson and Kay Bibens are working really hard to make it a great experience for everyone—educational and fun, too.

You will enjoy the comforts of the newly renovated hotel, which is located at One North Broadway. To make hotel reservations, just call the hotel directly at 800.325.3535.

The deadline to receive the OLTA special rate is March 12, 2007.

So, make your reservations to attend this year’s convention. Registration information will be emailed in the very near future. However, if you have questions or need additional information, contact the OLTA office at 405.840.l944.

Abstract of Title

Charles Wesley Benton,
Veteran Abstractor

Making abstracts is a dry, prosaic calling, well we know,
Delving daily into records made a century ago,
Tracing wearily the title from the patent down to date,
Through the maze of suits and transfers that obscure and complicate.

Yet, for me, there’s fascination in thus working in the past,
And on all the seeming drudgery there’s a kind of glamour cast.
For there’s poetry and romance running through the tangled chain,
And there’s written in the record much of human joy and pain.

For, like Gibbon and Macouley, we’re historians in our way,
And we bring to light transactions of a gone, forgotten day;
True, we only sketch the outline, but behind it all there lies
Quite a bit of human interest that our fancy well supplies.

And I love to let that fancy freely roam and weave a tale
About every deed and mortgage, into each judicial sale;
For the records deal with pioneers and homestead farms and homes,
And we garner many heart throbs from those dry and musty tomes.

For in every grim foreclosure lurks a heartache, and we sense
In the bankruptcy assignment human misery intense;
There is grief in every tax sale, and we seem to hear the wail
Of the widow and the children robbed of home by sheriff’s sale.

Delving through the court proceedings, we find interwoven there,
Couched in formal, legal, lingo much of sorrow and despair
And we live again through all the trials of folks of long ago.
Running through the chain of titles there is a deal of human woe.

The estate files, torn and tattered-there is a certain something there,
That is sacred and we handle with reverence and care.
And they help us to determine how the owner’s life was spent,
For he often bares his soul in his last Will and Testament.

And in running through petition suits there plainly will be seen,
In the squabbles of the children much that’s grasping, low, and mean.
For in fighting for a dead man’s wealth, the baser feeling breed.
Running through the chain of titles there’s a deal of human greed.

And in pouring o’re the records that pertain to real estate,
Setting forth the imperfections that impair and complicate,
Comes the thought of my souls record and the mess I’ve made of it,
And I long to change some things that the Recording Angels writ.

And I wonder, when the tangled chain is done, and I have died,
And the Abstract of my life is duly closed and certified,
And the Great Examiner scans each fatal flaw and grave defect,
Will he waive those imperfections in my record – or reject??

Provided October 2006
By Gerald Glenn
Okfuskee County Abstract & Title Co.

Who is Charles Wesley Benton?
If you know who Charles Wesley Benton is (or was), send us an email at kbibens@coxinet.net and we’ll include the answer in our next TitleGram. Thanks to Gerald Glenn for sharing this tome with OLTA president, Danita Francis, and vice president Catherine Blakley.

Photo Gallery

OLTA Members (L to R) Beverly Jones, Laura Dishman, Barry and Donna Schmulbach, Hershel Beard, Mary Ann and Casey Nelson, and Danita Francis enjoy the ALTA Convention in San Francisco.

Mary Ann Nelson and Danita Francis spend a moment
with former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.