Morel Joins Archon Information Systems’ Legal Team

NEW ORLEANS – Archon Information Systems has hired Stephen Morel as their new Chief Legal Officer.

         Morel, a leading expert in Louisiana real estate, tax sale and title insurance laws, will spearhead all legal and title insurance aspects of the company’s adjudicated property sales for its clients throughout the state. Morel brings over a decade of experience in the highly specialized field of title insurability of tax delinquent real estate. He is one of the founding partners of the local law firm, Morel Yorsch LLC, co-owner of NOLA Title Company LLC and an active member of the Louisiana State Law Institute Tax Sales Committee.

         “Stephen is a rare talent with an encyclopedic understanding of an area of law that is little known and often misunderstood by colleagues and laymen alike,” said Archon CEO Bryan Barrios. “His understanding of state and federal due process standards associated with the sale of taxes and property by government, combined with Archon’s market-driven online CivicSource platform, provides governing authorities everywhere with the first, and only, of its kind solution for selling and insuring land bank properties.”

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         With Morel on board to facilitate the placement of title insurance on properties offered for sale, Archon launched its first recurring monthly adjudicated property sale, which was a live online auction facilitated through its high-tech management system, CivicSource, in New Orleans.

         In the first two months, New Orleans has collected $8.3 million in past due property tax revenue dollars and has returned 170 properties to commerce, placing them back on the annual tax rolls. Online auctions will continue to take place on the first Wednesday of each month via www.civicsource.com.

         Over the last 10 years, Morel has examined thousands of Louisiana tax sale and tax adjudicated titles for compliance with constitutional due process and statutory procedural requirements in order to qualify the property for title insurance – imperative for a purchaser to get a loan to purchase and/or improve the property. Leveraging his experience, Morel created the Identified Risk Endorsement for Tax Sales–the very first title insurance product to insure the risk of a tax sale in the chain of title to a purchaser or a lender. This endorsement, sponsored by WFG National Title Insurance Company, was filed with and approved by the Louisiana Department of Insurance in 2014. Thereafter, Morel drafted virtually the entire set of underwriting guidelines and requirements for approval to issue the Endorsement through WFG.

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         “CivicSource’s technology, combined with the Identified Risk Endorsement for Tax Sales, is what makes this partnership and offering so unique and outstanding,” said Morel. “This means that we can finally offer title insurance to buyers and lenders of adjudicated properties when purchased through CivicSource – an absolutely groundbreaking achievement in the critically important public mission to get these seriously delinquent, and usually blighted or abandoned properties, truly back into commerce. Parish and municipal governments electing to take advantage of this unique service from CivicSource will be able to take in funds desperately needed for overall public services and experience the stabilization of neighborhoods and an eradication of blight throughout the communities which need it most.”

         Morel received his bachelor’s degree in Eastern European studies from Louisiana State University, and his Juris Doctorate from the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center. He is currently licensed to practice law before all Louisiana State and Federal courts, including the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is an authorized title agent of WFG National Title Insurance Company and is licensed by the State of Louisiana as a Notary Public and a producer of title, life, and health insurance. Morel also served eight years in the Louisiana Army National Guard as a military intelligence NCO, and was honorably discharged in 2001 after achieving the rank of staff sergeant.

         Archon is a private company based in New Orleans that progressively converges government with technology, resulting in business solutions. The company provides all levels of government and governmental agencies with comprehensive tax and adjudicated property sale solutions. Its leading product, CivicSource, digitizes compulsory due process mandates and administers wholly online auctions of tax and adjudicated properties on behalf of tax-recipient bodies.

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