Title companies had direct access to alter title records at Bureau of Conveyances

Advertiser reports on the documents turned over by the investigator to a special legislative committee investigating the state Bureau of Conveyances. The investigator resigned Monday after charges that he was biased, but the Advertiser says after reviewing them that "The documents [...] do not contain any summaries or conclusions by Lui about his investigation. Instead, they involve witness statements, copies of e-mail, and financial and contractual records that Lui had gathered."

Along with favoritism for large title companies (like Title Guaranty) and general dysfunction, "Among the most serious allegations, so far, is that Bureau of Conveyances records may have been accessed and altered by title companies using either bureau employee logons and passwords or private logons and passwords." Also, "Other claims involve a computer at the bureau donated by Title Guaranty of Hawaii that several bureau workers believe gives the company greater access to bureau documents than its competitors."

Star-Bulletin also has a story.

Update: Advertiser columnist David Shapiro blogs about Lui's investigation, arguing that due to his bias the legislative committee will lose credibility if they use his product, and should start from scratch. He says, "inexplicably, the House and Senate panel continues to insist on using the product of Lui's earlier investigation of the bureau."

But I have to repeat what was printed in his own paper. "The documents, reviewed by The Advertiser yesterday, do not contain any summaries or conclusions by Lui about his investigation. Instead, they involve witness statements, copies of e-mail, and financial and contractual records that Lui had gathered." It is not that inexplicable to me that the committee would want to retain actual documents such as those described as part of their investigation.

Perhaps one could argue that the way questions were asked to obtain witness statements could reflect some bias and would have to be reviewed carefully. And if somehow bias may have influenced which documents were obtained, then there may be further investigation necessary; there likely is anyway.

But otherwise it sounds quite clear from the Advertiser itself that the material consists of actual statements and documents from the bureau, free of any bias of the investigator. Given that, I don't see what is wrong with using them. Throwing them out (and then going to get them again, in a less biased manner?), when the documents themselves are objective facts, just seems like a useless waste of time.

The big picture here is how fucking serious the breaches are that the documents apparently expose.

I'm sure there are others out there who can articulate it better than I can, and I'm no expert in the complex issues of Hawaiian land title, but I feel like I need to emphasize the seriousness of this and try to explain it, as best I understand it.

Throughout Hawaii's history, there have been numerous levels of activity in which bad actors conspired (yes) to deprive Hawaiians of their land—intentionally, fraudulently, mercilessly, cunningly, and continuously. But in the realm of the long post-occupation process of acquiring land title and removing Hawaiian interests parcel by parcel, I think no entity has played a more central role than Title Guaranty, Hawaii's largest title company, created in 1952 through the merger of two older title companies. I'm sure many generally fine people work there and believe they are just providing a necessary service and are doing their jobs, and most of their transactions are just part of the overall land system that has been imposed on Hawaii as part of the occupation. But even right here in East Maui, I can't believe how many different versions of the same basic story I have heard and seen documents for, where land has been taken through nefarious deeds. Sometimes it is through quiet title action and adverse possession. Sometimes deeds were falsified or coerced. Sometimes a deed is just made up out of thin air (I'm dealing with one of those right now—there are some royal patent grants from the 1850s and then no record of any conveyance, and then suddenly in the 1960s one entity with no ties to the original grantees sells it to another entity, and the chain of title proceeds from there.) But the common thread is that for title to transfer on to the next party in line, it must be guaranteed by the title company. The title company is the linchpin in the whole process. The third leg in the stool. Their guaranty that the title is good gives it its value and enables the transaction to take place between the seller and the buyer. And Title Guaranty specifically has been in the middle of many many of these transactions. They are the great enabler of the grand Hawaiian land theft, and great benefactor, as they take a piece of each transaction. That's what I believe based on what I've seen.

So, now, we learn that Title Guaranty apparently had access to just directly alter title records themselves? How convenient! It takes the process to a whole new level of efficiency! Why even bother dealing with land court to clear up all those bothersome Hawaiian interests in the land?

Who knows how much they actually did, if any. But the point is that they have a clear history of helping remove Hawaiian interests from land, and they were given the ability to just go in and do it directly. How much they did we'll never know. But it seems to me the entire credibility of the title recordation system in Hawaii has been undermined. I mean, before, they would use every means available to acquire clear title, and there were plenty of corruptions in that process, but there was some sense that once it came from land court it was at least being recorded in a somewhat objective manner. But the means available became direct alteration of the land title records, and now even that is suspect.

Unbelievable.

I must note again, the Bureau of Conveyances was created under the Hawaiian Kingdom civil codes, and is the one "state" agency that has been continuously in existence from the kingdom on. The records it holds go all the way back to the original land commission awards, royal patents, etc. upon which the entire system of land titles is based. (Here's a good brief history of land titles in Hawaii written by the Superintendent of Government Survey, 1891, two years before the intervention.)

Update 7/13: Star-Bulletin editorial echoes Shapiro, saying "That legislators will still use the suspect fruits of [Lui's] probe contributes even more to the dubious value of the House-Senate committee's attempt to examine allegations of misdeeds at the bureau," but seeming also to miss the point that all Lui turned over to the committee was objective, factual evidence—witness statements, copies of e-mail, and financial and contractual records—which themselves can have no "taint" of bias and are not "suspect" fruits.

Doug comments and seems to agree with me: "Mr. Mollway and some of the (Republican) legislators on the committee are still trying to discredit the evidence—even the interview tapes made of BOC staff, though it is hard to fathom how the staff and the investigator were somehow all part of a conspiracy of bias."

Posted: Thu - July 12, 2007 at 09:42 AM

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Title companies had direct access to alter title records at Bureau of Conveyances

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