Real Estate & Property Law

The Importance of Good Funds ? Don?t Trust Fed Wire Numbers

By Dave Wirsching

As banks continue to fail, I thought it would be a good time to re-post one of our most popular articles from 2007:

Recently there’s been significant discussion in the title business about “Good Funds.”

When we are waiting for funds to show up in our trust account, Lenders routinely offer to provide the Fed Wire Number as proof that the funds were delivered. We’re glad to write them down, but we won’t accept anything less than a wire receipt confirmation from our bank as proof of receipt. Here’s why:

A Fed Wire Number means the funds were sent, but it doesn’t mean that it was sent to you. There was an eye-opening article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

“They say Greene met two men behind bars, and the three conjured up a plan to steal millions in wire transfers from Cendant Mortgage Corp., the Mount Laurel-based company now called PHH Mortgage.

With the help of an insider at the company, who has not been identified, they had computer codes changed on 15 Cendant wire transfers – worth about $2 million.

The money was bound for a Florida title company to close real-estate deals in the fall of 2003. Instead, prosecutors said, the money was redirected to two bank accounts held by the men Greene met in prison – Michael Umali and Dan Hutchinson Jr.”

Obviously, there were Fed Wire Numbers for these transactions, but the funds never arrived at the proper destination. Wire Numbers DO NOT equal delivery.

Be careful out there.

Full post as published by Clearing Title on October 05, 2009 (boomark / email).