I am trying to understand the revised Ohio Good Funds Law that will go into effect on April 6th, 2017. This is what I have interpreted, so if someone could please correct me if I am wrong on these provisions:

-Involves all residential 1-4 family real estate transactions (including commercial purpose)
-Any funds we are relaying to a title agent over $1,000 must be in the form of a wire or electronic transfer to the title agents escrow account. Cashier's checks are no longer allowed.

Is anyone else interpreting this law differently? Or am I missing anything?

Thank you!

Can you provide the citation in the ORC? I have not heard about this and would like to read the proposal.

It is an update to ORC 1349.21 as part of HB 463 - https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/legislation-summary?id=GA131-HB-463

I believe you are correct. I'd check with your attorney to make sure they interpret it the same way, as this is a law.

I don't believe it pertains to commercial purpose loans. You need to double check.

pjs, you are correct. I recently found FAQs that were issued by the Ohio Land Title Association to help clarify my initial questions above. Here is the link:

http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.olta.org/resource/resmgr/pdf/OhioGoodFundsLawFAQ.pdf

Thanks- Can you help regarding this law- do some banks have an escrow account that they can put the borrower's funds in and then wire the funds to the title company for closing? Or where can I find out about "escrow" account for that purpose- I seem to not be able to find anything on those type of accounts. Thanks for the help.

Our loan funds go directly from a loan funding GL account to the closing agent - so we wouldn't use any separate kind of deposit account for this purpose. The change is going to come into play for us is that if the closing agent/settlement attorney has THEIR escrow account that receives loan funds for their clients at our financial institution, we can no longer disburse the loan funds through ACH directly into their account. It has to be wired - which is totally ridiculous to have to wire funds WITHIN the same financial institution, but unfortunately that is the way the law is written.

This is an email I Received from one of our loan officers:

I have a closing coming up with a local Law Office. I spoke with someone from the office today, regarding their wire transfer fee so that I could correctly disclose it on our Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure. She told me that one of the changes made to Ohio Good Funds Law, at end of September, included a part that says financial institutions are no longer required to wire funds if the title co or attorney’s office they would be wiring to has their account at their institution. She said another institution just puts the funds in their account without a wire. The buyer’s funds still have to be wired but not loan proceeds.

So I have 3 questions:
1. Is this correct?
2. If the Buyer is also our customer as well, are we still required to wire the funds or would we be able to transfer the funds internally?
3. Would an internal transfer from one account to another be considered "electronically transferred" or does it have to be wired or done via ACH?