Terms Used In Tennessee Code > Title 56 > Chapter 35 > Part 1 - Operation of Title Insurance Businesses

• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Associate: includes any:
  (A) Employee of a producer of title insurance business. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Attorney: means the person designated and authorized by subscribers as the attorney-in-fact having authority to obligate them on reciprocal insurance contracts. See Tennessee Code 56-16-102
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of commerce and insurance, and includes all deputies legally appointed and constituted to act in the commissioner's place and stead by other applicable law of the state. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Controlled business: describes that portion of a title insurance company's, title insurance agent's or title insurance agency's business in this state with which there is connected in any way, directly or indirectly:
  (A) Producers of title insurance business who have financial interests in the title insurance company, title insurance agent or title insurance agency. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Department: means the department of commerce and insurance. See Tennessee Code 56-1-102
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fee simple: Absolute title to property with no limitations or restrictions regarding the person who may inherit it.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Financial interest: means any interest, legal or beneficial, such that the holder is or will be entitled to a share of the net profits or net worth of the business in which the interest is held. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Foreign: when used without limitation, includes all companies formed by authority of any other state or government. See Tennessee Code 56-1-102
• insurance company: includes all corporations, associations, partnerships, or individuals engaged as principals in the business of insurance. See Tennessee Code 56-1-102
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means an individual, firm, association, partnership, estate, trust, fiduciary, syndicate or corporation. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Policy: means any instrument, contract or agreement whereby and whereunder title insurance companies insure or guarantee titles to real property, or interests therein, or liens or encumbrances on the property, as defined in subdivision (11). See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Producer of title insurance business: means :
  (A) The insured or one (1) of the insureds under a policy of title insurance, except that, if the interest of the insured is held in a fiduciary capacity, the true or beneficial owner of the interest shall be deemed the insured for the purposes of this definition. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• real property: include lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Representative: when applied to those who represent a decedent, includes executors and administrators, unless the context implies heirs and distributees. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Risk rate: means the aggregate consideration paid, or to be paid, to a title insurance company for the insurance liability assumed under the policy of title insurance, or binder therefor, issued and delivered, or proposed to be issued and delivered, by the company, exclusive of all other charges incident to the issuance of the binder or policy for abstracting, record searching, certificates as to the record title to real estate, escrow and closing services, or other related services that may be offered by any title insurance or guaranty company and which company is authorized by law and its charter to perform, or the company's costs and expenses of procuring examinations of titles by attorneys approved or selected by it for such purpose. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• signed: includes a mark, the name being written near the mark and witnessed, or any other symbol or methodology executed or adopted by a party with intention to authenticate a writing or record, regardless of being witnessed. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Subscriber: means a person obligated under a reciprocal insurance agreement. See Tennessee Code 56-16-102
• Title insurance agency: means a firm, association, trust, corporation, cooperative, joint stock company or other legal entity authorized in writing by a title insurance company to solicit title insurance, collect premiums, determine insurability in accordance with the underwriting rules and standards prescribed by the title insurance company that the agency represents, and issue title insurance policies, title insurance binders, commitments to insure and endorsements thereto in its behalf. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Title insurance agent: means either:
  (A) A natural person who meets the requirements of or performs the same functions as a "title insurance agency". See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Title insurance business: means the insuring or guaranteeing of titles to real property, or interests in real property, or the validity, accuracy or sufficiency of liens or encumbrances on real property. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Title insurance company: means any corporation, foreign or domestic, authorized by its charter to conduct a "title insurance business" as defined by this chapter and is sometimes referred to as "insurer" or "insurers. See Tennessee Code 56-35-102
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• written: includes printing, typewriting, engraving, lithography, and any other mode of representing words and letters. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Year: means a calendar year, unless otherwise expressed. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105