Sarasota Title Agent Dodges Hot Water; Remains In Good Standing Despite Admitting To Screwing Around With Escrow Funds Resulting In Six-Figure Losses

In Central Florida, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reports:

• As the closing agent on the [real estate] deal, it was Sarasota title agent Lisa Rotolo's job to make sure the [existing mortgage] loan got repaid. Instead, in 2004 Rotolo partially paid off the old loan and handed her clients $100,000, according to a 2008 foreclosure case filed in Sarasota County's circuit court. During testimony in the case, Rotolo conceded that she directed money to her clients and then filed documents incorrectly stating the old mortgage had been repaid. Bank officials did not realize what she had done until early 2008, when her clients, Jonathan Glucker and his wife, Heather Kabobel, stopped making payments and another lender foreclosed on the property, claiming it had first rights to sell the house and recoup its losses.

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• Last year, Rotolo was named in a suit filed by David Oriente in Sarasota County's circuit court. Oriente alleged that Rotolo allowed [real estate agent Craig] Adams [see The king of the Sarasota flip] to take $400,000 out of an escrow fund that was supposed to be used for buying properties. Adams used the money to pay off an old debt and kept $50,000, the lawsuit states. [...] Circuit Court Judge Bob McDonald awarded Oriente's company more than $471,000 in damages in December 2008 after Adams failed to respond to the lawsuit.

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• Today, Rotolo's company, Diamond Title, has closed. But Rotolo still has her Florida license to operate as a title agent. No one, including the bank officials suing her, has filed a complaint against her, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue, the state agency that oversees Rotolo's profession. Rotolo remains a committee chair for the Sarasota Association of Realtors, a trade group that promotes itself as a watchdog over local real estate agents.

For the story, see Title agent closed 100 Adams deals. EscrowRipOffKappa