You can initiate and complete transactions from anywhere. You dont have to be in Hawaii.
As a closing company that has done and does business in Hawaii, the title issue has always been a Hawaii thing. No matter where the title comapny is located, all Hawaii title policies had to be searched and issued by a Hawaii company.
The big issue on the new law as it reads, and as our Hawaii Real Estate Attorney has read it and the commentary of the law is that now all the funds related to closing have to be handled by one of the 7 or 8 LICENSED ESCROW COMPANIES in Hawaii. The requirements to become a licensed Hawaii Escrow Company are many, with the main one being you have to have a real office and a real employee working there for them to come in and audit the books at their discretion.
You still do not have to have a Hawaii Title Company except for the title insurance. You are required in the prepartion of deeds and what not use a Hawaii attorney as it is the practice of law to prepare a deed for OTHERS.
What is going to happen, and I have had to research the law well, is that companies such as mine, will work with one of the approved escrow companies, the buyer or if the seller has to bring funds, will make those certified funds to the entity handling the escorw and once everything is ready to be recorded, the escrow company will disburse all the funds back to the closing company in the form of escrow checks from the escrow company to disburse to sellers and the resort, or the closing company can choose to have the funds mailed direct to the parties from the Hawaii escrow account.
The law while written was to protect the residential and commercial market in Hawaii on who can handle funds, but since they wrote it as any real property, it wil include timeshares. The down side is expect the days of $300 closings to increase because of the costs of adding an escrow company into the mix.
While the law is a severe restrant of trade to closing companies, it will take someone with a lot of money and a lot of time to bring action in Federal court to try to have the law ruled unconstitutional. I have looked at some cost estimates to do that and your talking an investment that you might never win on for the first year in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Our company has put the necessary things in place that we will operate within the scope of the law, but it is something you will wnat to ask each and every closing company.
