The POWER 30: Nancy Landmark

Commercial Partners Title

Nancy Landmark allows that with a name like hers, she may have been predestined for real estate law. She’s very good at it, even if not fated for it, as vice president and senior title counsel at Commercial Partners Title, a division of Chicago Title Insurance Company, located in Minneapolis.

Landmark enjoys working on details with outside counsel and taking responsibility for making the deals the way they should be. “I love working with local developers, watching what’s on paper become a real-life project. I ‘do a rubberneck’ when I see a project along the road.”

Title counsel starts from the very beginning, examining the title, committing to insure the title, working through title issues, and working with counsel on fixing things. Sometimes litigation is required in any of a number of ways, to reform a document, quiet title, or complete a proceeding subsequent in Torrens property, Landmark said. “I tend to think outside of the box, look for nontraditional ways to solve problems so we can get through the closing. We want transactions to go on time. We don’t want it to fall apart if parties want to do a deal. I enjoy it very much,” she said.

While real estate law dates back forever, it still changes, Landmark said. For title insurance, the policy forms and endorsements may look different. One innovation is a trust on some proceeds from sales involving agricultural producers to protect a person buying real estate from a later claim for nonpayment.

The council of the MSBA real property law section is working on making real estate forms understandable, Landmark said. “It’s just important that everybody understands what they sign,” she said.