House Minority Leader Michael W. Chippendale (R District 40 - Coventry, Foster, Glocester) addresses the chamber regarding 2026 H 7551, "An Act Relating to Criminal Offenses -- Fraud & False Dealing."
While Leader Chippendale speaks in favor of the bill's intent to combat real estate and title fraud, he strongly opposes the inclusion of an unfunded mandate. He emphasizes that requiring municipalities to invest in and maintain new property notification systems places an unfair financial burden on local governments, particularly smaller towns that are not as modernized. Standing on principle to protect cities and towns from mandates that could push their budgets past the state's 4% tax cap, Leader Chippendale announces his intention to vote against the legislation.
House Bill No. 7551 as amended BY Kennedy, Solomon, Kazarian, Azzinaro, Edwards, Corvese, Ackerman, McEntee, Serpa, Cotter ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO CRIMINAL OFFENSES -- FRAUD AND FALSE DEALING (Establishes the criminal offense of real estate title fraud. Allows municipalities to refuse to record “suspicious documents” from persons who are not trusted submitters. Also creates penalties for real estate title fraud.) {LC4273/1} » http://webserver.rilegislature.gov/BillText/BillText26/HouseText26/H7551aa.pdf
Title fraud obviously is real and with the advent of all of this fantastic technology
that's making our lives easier it's unfortunately easier for the bad guys to
manipulate a system that has holes in it and to take advantage of those who are trusting or
perhaps not in a position to understand what's going on and in some cases it happens without
them even knowing. To address this is extremely important. I like what this bill is doing in
regards to the protections and also the punishments for those who get caught in it.
But dare I sound like a broken record in this is a property alert mandate that's causing our
municipalities to now invest regardless of their size, staffing, land evidence system, vendor
contract, budget capacity. They have to invest and create and maintain a property notification
system and I know that we've had some assurances that it's not going to be all that expensive
and a single peck from a chicken on your leg is not going to kill you but a whole bunch of them
can and this again you've been hearing me say this all year I like this bill I like what it's doing
I'm going to vote no on the unfunded mandate principle knowing that it's going to pass and
knowing that my my vote is not going to derail an otherwise good bill but I am going to continue to
urge my colleagues to thoughtfully approach legislation from the perspective of their
towns and the burdens we're placing on them because we are seeing more and more towns whose
budgets are now going to exceed the four percent cap every single year and if we think we don't
play a role in that with our mandates up here that we don't support with with financial support to
our cities and towns then we're fooling ourselves we absolutely are playing a role in this and we
have to be far more conscientious of that particularly for our smaller towns particularly
for our towns that aren't as modernized again I will vote no unless all of a sudden everybody
else does and it's going to fail by one vote then I'll switch at the last minute but for
the most part it's just going to be a protest vote thank you
