1. These terms
1.1 These terms are an agreement between Still My Home, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("we", "us"), and you and the company you work for ("you"). They apply each time you send a request through our verify page, ask us to release or adjust a notice for a closing, or receive an answer or document from us. They're a business agreement, not a consumer contract.
1.2 By ticking the box and sending a request, you confirm that you're authorized to act for your company and to agree to these terms for it.
2. Who may send a request
2.1 You may send a request only if you're handling a real, pending sale, loan, refinance, transfer or lease of the home, or you're asked to insure, record or rely on a document about it.
2.2 You confirm that you hold any license your work requires, that you work for or act for the company you name, and that everything you tell us is true, including your name, company, email address and the transaction details. Use your work email address.
2.3 If you suspect fraud involving the home, please tell us.
3. What we do
3.1 We confirm that you can receive email at the address you give us, then send your request to the owner of the home we verified (the "member"), by email, and by text if the member agreed to texts. The member sees your company's name and the type of transaction. We also send copies to the people the member chose to get copies. We don't check who you are or who you work for, so we give the answer only to the email address that sent the request.
3.2 When the member answers, we email you the answer with a time stamp, and you can print or save a written record. Links to a request's status stop working after 30 days.
3.3 Only the member, or someone we've confirmed can act for them, can answer. We never answer for an owner, and we don't override an owner's answer. A member can contact us to change an answer; if they do, we tell you.
3.4 If we can't match your request to a member's home, a person reviews it and emails you. If the membership for the home has ended, we tell you the owner can't be asked through us, and we may let the former member know your company's name and the type of transaction.
3.5 We may limit how many requests an email address or company can send, and suspend anyone who misuses the verify page.
4. What an answer means, and what it doesn't
4.1 An answer is the member's own statement to us, passed on to you as they gave it. "Yes" means the member told us they know about and agree to the transaction you described. "No" means they told us they don't. We add nothing else to it.
4.2 How we verify members. Before we accept someone as a member, they pass an identity check (a government photo ID and a live face match; in rare cases, such as a disability, a video check of the photo ID by our staff) and confirm they're an owner of record, or authorized to act for the company or trust that is. We compare the name on their ID with the deed. These steps lower the risk that a member is an impostor. They don't remove it.
4.3 An answer isn't:
- (a) permission to close;
- (b) a title search, a title commitment, title insurance or an opinion on title;
- (c) a check of the identity of anyone at your closing, or of the documents, signatures or notarizations in your transaction;
- (d) a release of any requirement in your underwriting or closing instructions; or
- (e) legal advice.
4.4 No answer means nothing either way. If the member hasn't answered, we don't know whether they agree.
4.5 You make your own decision. You stay responsible for your own identity checks, title examination, underwriting and closing procedures, and for following your underwriter's requirements and the law. Our answer is one piece of information for your file. You don't rely on us for anything else.
4.6 If the member says no to a transaction you believe is genuine, ask the member to contact us. If another owner, a lender or a court has the right to make the transaction, tell us; we may tell the member and record that you told us.
4.7 We aren't a consumer reporting agency, and an answer isn't a consumer report. You certify that you'll use an answer only to decide whether to go ahead with, or ask more about, the transaction you described, and never as a factor in deciding anyone's eligibility for credit, insurance, employment or housing.
5. Releasing or adjusting a notice for a closing
5.1 If your closing needs the notice released, adjusted, or explained in a letter, choose "Release or adjust for a closing" on the verify page and give us: your company's name and license number, your work email, the closing or order number, the expected closing date, whether it's a sale or refinance, the lender's name, the title insurance underwriter, and what your underwriter needs.
5.2 Before we send anything, the member approves in their account, and we check your company ourselves, using its license record and its publicly listed phone number. We never use a phone number or address given only in the request. We may ask for more information, and we may refuse a request we can't verify.
5.3 What we provide, through a secure link that records who downloads it:
- (a) a letter to the lender and title insurer confirming that we hold no debt, lien or interest and claim no priority over the new mortgage;
- (b) a signed, notarized agreement saying the same and that the notice comes after the new mortgage, for you to record with it; or
- (c) a release, for you to record with the deed or mortgage under our written authorization.
5.4 Conditions for anything you record for us. Our written authorization and recording instructions control. In short:
- (a) record only what we sent, unchanged, only in the county named, and only together with, or right after, the deed or mortgage for the order named, never before the closing funds;
- (b) authority ends 10 days after the closing date or 30 days after we send it, whichever comes first, or sooner if we revoke it or the closing is cancelled;
- (c) your company countersigns the authorization before we release a document for recording;
- (d) send us the recording number, date and a copy within 2 business days after recording; and
- (e) if the closing doesn't take place, or the authority ends, destroy what we sent and all copies, and confirm in writing within 2 business days.
Recording anything outside these conditions is an unauthorized filing, and you're responsible for it.
5.5 Fees. There's no fee from us. The county's fee for recording our release or agreement is a closing cost, charged like any other recording fee.
6. Using what we tell you
6.1 Use the member's answer and anything we send only for the transaction you described. Share it only with the parties to that transaction who need it, your underwriter, your title insurer and your regulators, or with law enforcement if the member said no.
6.2 Don't contact the member except through the verify page, unless they already deal with you directly in the transaction. Don't use our service to market to anyone, and don't build a database, resell or publish what we tell you.
6.3 Confidentiality. Treat what we tell you about the member as confidential, protect it with reasonable safeguards, tell us within 3 business days if it's exposed in a security incident, and delete it when the transaction ends unless a law or your record-keeping rules require you to keep it.
7. What you agree not to do
You agree not to:
- (a) send a request that isn't about a real transaction, or use our verify page to look up people or properties;
- (b) pretend to be someone else or to work for a company you don't work for;
- (c) put pressure on a member to change an answer, or ask them to answer by phone or text reply;
- (d) copy, scrape or collect data from our site, or use bots or automated tools on it; or
- (e) try to get around our checks.
We may refuse requests from anyone who breaks these terms, and report suspected fraud to the authorities.
8. Privacy and records
We keep your name, company, email address, license number, the request, your agreement to these terms and the IP address used, and we share your company's name and the transaction type with the member and their copy recipients, or with a former member (section 3.4). We log activity on the verify page to keep it secure. If a request turns out to be part of a fraud, we may share everything we have about it with the member, their attorney and the authorities. Our Privacy Policy explains the rest.
9. Limits on what we owe
9.1 We provide the verify service free of charge, as it is. You're responsible for your own decisions about your transaction.
9.2 We're not responsible for indirect or consequential losses, or for lost profits or business. Our total liability to you and your company for all claims about the verify service and anything we send under these terms is limited to $100.
9.3 These limits don't apply to losses caused by our fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct, or to anything the law doesn't allow us to limit.
9.4 Indemnity. You'll cover our losses and reasonable costs, including attorney's fees, from any claim brought against us because you sent a false request or acted without authority, used or shared an answer or document in a way these terms don't allow, broke section 6.3, recorded a document outside section 5.4, or broke the law.
9.5 Nothing in these terms affects what we owe members under our Terms of Service or the Restoration Promise.
10. Other terms
10.1 Members can enforce sections 5.4, 6 and 7 against you, as well as us.
10.2 These terms are governed by New York law, except that the law of the state where the home is governs anything about recording in that state's land records. Either of us may bring a claim in the state or federal courts in New York County, New York, but those courts aren't the only place a claim can be brought. If you agreed to these terms in North Carolina, nothing in them requires you to bring or defend a claim outside North Carolina.
10.3 We may change these terms. We post the new version with a new date, and it applies to requests sent after that. If you've sent us requests before, we'll ask you to agree again on your next request.
10.4 If a part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies. These terms, with any authorization letter we send for a closing, are the whole agreement about the verify service. For that closing, the authorization letter controls.
10.5 You agree to receive these terms, our answers and our documents electronically.
10.6 Contact: help@stillmyhome.com, or Still My Home, Inc., 82 Nassau St #61542, New York, NY 10038.