In one of the less-noticed aspects of his State of the Union address, President Biden announced his elimination of the requirement that Federally-backed mortgages be accompanied by title insurance. Instead of such insurance, normally paid by home buyers, which ensures that the property on which the house rests legally belongs to the seller, the administration will now accept “attorney opinion letters” attesting to that fact. But such letters, as New York Post columnist James Bovard observes, have little value, and come in the wake of a recent report by FundingShield that home title fraud risk “reached an all-time high” in 2023. Even more importantly, however, for those who believe in the importance of Constitutional government, Biden’s announcement – like his repeated attempts to unilaterally cancel debt obligations on student loans – exhibits his continuing practice of substituting government by executive or agency fiat for the Constitutionally ordained process of congressional legislation.
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