Should private title insurers be permitted to force married couples to relinquish their state-law community property rights when purchasing a home?

QUESTION PRESENTED: Despite the fact that there are approximately 100 title insurers in the United States, the majority of the title insurance market in the country is controlled by only four major title insurers. Fidelity National Financial Inc. and its “family” of title . insurance companies (i.e. Fidelity National Title Insurance Company, Chicago Title Insurance Company, Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company, Alamo Title Insurance Company, Lawyers Title Company and Ticor Title Insurance Company) is the largest title insurer in the nation. First American Title Insurance Company is a close second. Stewart Title Guaranty Company and Old Republic National Title Insurance Company have substantially smaller shares of the market. All of the four major tithe companies, in this matter specifically TICOR, a division of Fidelity National Financial, Inc., in transacting their title policies, have adopted a practice of manipulating the state law legal standing which exists between : married couples who seek to take title in only the name of one spouse only, by insisting that one spouse or the other execute a deed selected by the title company which acts to remove the signing party from the State’s community property scheme. TICOR, in this practice, does not offer legal counsel to the purchasing party, nor does it allow the party to speak with outside counsel, instead they have adopted a practice of presenting a legally binding real property deed and insisting that a purchaser’s spouse execute same, else they will refuse insurance and will allow they home purchase to fail in escrow. For many married couples the purchase of a home is the most significant financial transaction that they will ever undertake. A real property asset can form the basis of generation wealth. In practice, when faced with such a demand from the title insurer, and faced with the threat of their home purchase failing, regular citizens just go ahead and comply with such demands and, in such manner, TICOR, and all the title insurers, are able to satisfy their . own interests in risk management at the expense of the rights of ‘citizens. In community property States, as here, married citizens can be thus forced to relinquish their State law community property rights in the home they are purchasing, Thus, the question presented is should such private interests be permitted to oppress their clients in this manner, in a particularly vulnerable moment, and to thus force citizens to relinquish their marital property rights. Aren’t family law courts : the proper place for marital rights to be balanced? With reference iil to California Family Code §760, which provides that all property purchased by either party during marriage is community property, how can it be said then that in the sale of real property to a married person in California that the transaction could possibly be . . undertaken without any intent to affect the interests of the spouse? Is the Public well served by letting the Title Insurance Industry make decisions for married couples that should properly be addressed by a California Family Court Judge, operating under the California Family Code?