I just received a call from Mark Perez who works at Stewart Title in King County telling me that Northwest Cable News is showing film footage of a fire in progress at Stewart Title’s Snohomish County main office in Everett.
If you recall it was less than a year ago that Stewart Title Everett received a two million dollar fine by the state Insurance Commissioner for violating provisions of state law governing title insurance companies.
Update: Here are some links to follow up stories on the fire:
Seattle Times says ATF is investigating
KIRO TV reports that ATF says the fire does not look suspicious. video
Are you suggesting that the Insurance Commissioner torched the place? 😉
Is this a repository for important docs?
Are you suggesting this is a two-fer fire? Collect on the fire insurance and also go bankrupt to avoid paying the fine?
The obviously had the ethics to do it.
I believe that they just merged offices to this site? What a mess! The news said last night that flames were shooting 30 feet high in the air.
That sucks! When things could not get any worse for Stewart Title they did 🙁
biliruben,
If you’ve never toured a title plant, you have no idea. You’ll never see so much paper.
I would think there were few important docs that don’t exist elsewhere (like another title plant for a different company.)
Greg, there’s also a lot of micro-film, reel to reels…and since I’m sure they did escrow and (I assuming) prepared recordings, think about the transaction/documents (original deeds, deeds of trusts) that are now MIA.
Rhonda,
Bingo with the originals laying around. That is exactly what we were thinking this morning. On the way out the door this morning Lynn and I were discussing back up protocols for data and everything else–storage off site.
I just came back from dropping by the building after doing some errands and the Fire Marshall and ATF were milling around.
Oh my…forgot about the escrow end.
It’s going to impact many transactions. Hopefully everyone cooperates with getting re-signed.
If anyone needs to reach Stewart due to a transaction in process, I have heard that Stewart Everett staff is working out of their Bothell and SeaTac offices.
Bothell: 425-205-4500
SeaTac: 206-770-8700