The Legal Description

Dear Readers, Legislatures are moving through their sessions, with numerous bills becoming law. Among them is a lien removal bill in Indiana. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed legislation establishing a fee for recording the release of a lien or liens on property held by a political subdivision. The bill, HB 1231, was authored by Rep. Thomas Saunders, R-Lewisville. The bill states that the county will charge “$25 per parcel for recording the release of a lien or liens of a political subdivision for a property sold or transferred under IC 6-1.1-24-6.1 or IC 36-1-11, regardless of the number of liens [...]

Dear readers, Here is yet another reminder to constantly be vigilant when it comes to cybersecurity. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) issued an industry letter to its regulated entities following a discovery of cybersecurity vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server. The industry letter states, “In recent days, thousands of organizations were comprised via zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server. On March 2, 2021, Microsoft made patches available for these vulnerabilities but many organizations were compromised either before the patches were available or before the patches were applied.” The four vulnerabilities were discovered in the Microsoft Exchange servers [...]

Dear Readers, I can’t believe we are already into February. January was certainly a busy month in many respects. New business, new goals, new administration. Through it all, state legislatures have continued their work, which had been halted for much of the last year. You can see from the edition, these legislatures are introducing legislation that touch on a variety of industry-related legislation. One piece of legislation that was interesting to me came out of Arizona. The Arizona Legislature recently introduced a bill that would require dealers selling manufactured homes to maintain a licensee’s trust account or open an escrow [...]

Dear Readers, We are right in the middle of Cybersecurity Awareness Month and you can tell by reading this edition. First, we share information from one of the cybersecurity track sessions from the National Settlement Services Summit, where two experts share steps to take after you discover you have been the victim of cybertheft. Second, we share information about two recent U.S. Treasury advisories to help individuals and businesses protect themselves against ransomware. The first is from the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the second from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). We continue to provide you [...]