Protecting America’s Property Rights Act
Key claim: The Protecting America’s Property Rights Act (HR3206) would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to establish risk-management standards for title insurance and similar state-regulated third-party products and to hold an extra 1% of unpaid principal as capital on any mortgage that does not meet those standards.
Abstract
(HR3206 · 119th Congress) Protecting America’s Property Rights Act This bill directs the government-sponsored enterprises—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—to establish standards for the use of products such as title insurance. (The enterprises facilitate liquidity in the mortgage market by purchasing mortgages and issuing mortgage-backed securities.) Specifically, the enterprises must establish regulations or guidelines for risk management related to loss or damage from liens upon, encumbrances on, or defects in the title to property, or the invalidity or unenforceability of any liens or encumbrances on property by using third party products subject to state regulation. Further, the enterprises must hold an additional 1% of the unpaid principal of any mortgage that does not meet the above regulations or guidelines as part of each enterprise’s minimum capital levels. Latest action (2025-05-06): Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Why this matters
By tying GSE capital treatment to how title insurance and similar state-regulated products are underwritten, HR3206 would insert a federal housing-finance lever into a market historically governed at the state level, potentially reshaping which title products lenders offer for conforming loans. For buyers this could shift closing-cost structures and product availability; for builders and lenders it creates a compliance-or-capital-surcharge choice that could ripple into pricing on noncompliant mortgages.