Ahhhhhh. I have learned a couple of things from my brothers. The one that died last year was a 'title officer' at a large local title company. The other is VP of lending at the biggest Credit Union in the region.

I'll sweet guarantee you that their deeds were indeed fee simple. It's a huge pain in the ass and the involved institutions will fuss like hell but it can be done.

The Title Company that my baby brother worked at started offering 'no lawyer' closings many years ago. Their attorney (called compliance officer) made damn sure that the forms were generically correct and would pass all legal tests then they just filled in the appropriate names. Reduced closing costs to $250, a huge savings for the buyer. Is the primary reason they had about 80% of the title business in the county. You could request a copy of the entire stack and they would give it to you a week before scheduled closing so you could read every document. Not very many did. I was one of the few.

I'll wait until tomorrow, but I have a spoiler alert. The 'lending' arm of the home buying deal is one of those dirty little secrets, dirty little lies operations.

Thanks for the exposure of this fraud. There are a few things you can do to protect yourself, but you have to be willing to go to 'extra trouble'.

Oh, and for the record: I have not ever, nor will I ever live in a place with an HOA. Those things are just bizarre in their set up and powers.