A title agency and underwriter face a federal suit alleging they made a home seller escrow proceeds over debts already covered by court bonds.
A Florida man who sold his late mother's home has sued the closing attorney, the title agency and the title underwriter that handled the deal, alleging they made him freeze nearly $74,000 of his proceeds over personal debts that were never a lien on the property. The complaint was filed on July 20, 2026, in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and none of its allegations have been tested.
The plaintiff, who served as personal representative of his mother's estate, says he hired an attorney to represent the estate in the sale for a flat fee of $1,500. According to the filing, that same attorney owned American Title Corp., the agency brought in to close the deal, while Fidelity National Title Insurance Company acted as the underwriter. The suit alleges that arrangement - the estate's own lawyer also owning the supposedly neutral title agent - was a conflict of interest that colored everything that followed.
For title and claims professionals, the escrow mechanics are the heart of it. According to the filing, the plaintiff had been litigating personal credit-card debts and had paid cash bonds into the court to secure the underlying judgments while he appealed. The complaint says the closing attorney assured him for months that those bonded judgments would not hold up the sale. In a July 21, 2023 email quoted in the filing, the attorney wrote: "You are correct about everything, the bonds will suffice for the judgments and we will escrow 125% (underwriter policy) of the unbonded judgment from your portion."
The suit alleges that position reversed days before the August 1, 2023 closing. The complaint says the underwriter then wanted holdbacks on the bonded judgments too - what the plaintiff describes as paying the same amounts twice, once as a court bond and once as a closing escrow. In a July 26, 2023 email quoted in the filing, the attorney wrote: "Unfortunately I spoke too soon when I emailed you from my phone on a Friday evening. Per my extensive discussions with the title underwriter this week, I misspoke."
The holdback the plaintiff says he was pressed to accept came to $73,958.19. According to the filing, he was told that if he refused, Fidelity would not issue title insurance and the sale would not close. He also questions why the escrow had to equal 125 percent of the judgments rather than their actual amounts, saying the only reason he was given was "underwriter policy."
The complaint builds on Florida's title-insurance framework. It cites Fl. Stat. 627.792, which the plaintiff says makes a title insurer liable for the defalcation, conversion or misappropriation of trust funds by a licensed title agent - a provision the filing uses to connect the underwriter to the agency's alleged conduct. The suit also points to Florida's appellate bond rule, arguing that cash already deposited with the court clerk is a "good and sufficient bond," so a second escrow over the same judgments had no basis.
The plaintiff further alleges that after one of the underlying judgments was satisfied and he provided a satisfaction of judgment, the defendants would not release the matching $16,016.78 holdback that he says the escrow agreement required. He also alleges he has never received any accounting for roughly $18,797 escrowed on a second matter.
The suit brings claims including conversion, breach of fiduciary duty, legal malpractice, breach of contract, negligence and violations of the federal and Florida racketeering statutes, and seeks about $5 million as determined by a jury. James River Insurance Company is identified as the $1 million liability carrier for the attorney, the firm and the agency, though it is not named as a defendant under Florida's nonjoinder rules.
The allegations in the complaint are unproven, and no court has ruled on any of the claims.
