It’s not still the early days of blockchain

Re:It’s not still the early days of blockchain by UncleMeat on Saturday January 15, 2022 @10:03AM (#29946820)

Title Insurance is indeed a racket at this point. Their payouts are a tiny percentage of their overall premiums. As you mention, this seems like a good option but in fact isn't a good one.

In order to replace title insurance and make it so anybody can verify the state of a property you need to first make all liens ever live on the blockchain. That's the hard part here. If it is possible to have a lien on a home without that appearing on a blockchain then there is still a need for somebody to review the title.

Further, there is no need for decentralization! The state can simply operate a centralized append-only database where transactions are recorded and liens are created and publish that to everybody.

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Re:It’s not still the early days of blockchain by throw0101a on Saturday January 15, 2022 @10:18AM (#29946951)

The average price of a house in Ontario, Canada is $922K:

* https://wowa.ca/ontario-housing-market

When purchase through a lawyer, title insurance in Ontario is around $250:

* https://www.getwhatyouwant.ca/what-the-heck-is-title-insuran...

250 / 922000 = 0.000271 or 0.03%. I've had bar tabs larger that $250.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It’s not still the early days of blockchain by UncleMeat on Saturday January 15, 2022 @12:06PM (#29948034)

It is true that the price of title insurance is very small compared to the price of the house. But their expected payouts are still a smaller percentage of their premiums than other insurance.

[ Parent | on HN ]