220. “Business Across State Lines” with Curt Moore

Dawn talks with Curt Moore, founder of Moat Title Security (headquartered in Oklahoma City and operating in nine states), about what businesses must consider when expanding into new states, especially in regulated industries like real estate and public document recording. Kurt explains the need to register as a foreign entity with each state’s Secretary of State (with varying fees and annual requirements), maintain proper insurance and risk-aligned terms of service, and understand county-by-county recording rules and acceptable document nomenclature. He emphasizes consistency in entity structure, getting legal advice, researching state statutes, and proactively calling state offices or county clerks for guidance. Curt describes how Moat modifies contract language in some states to coordinate with state fraud statutes, and how Moat prioritizes expansion states based on target demographics and regulatory complexity to avoid costly compliance surprises.

Who is Curt Moore and whom does he serve? (00:53)

Foreign Entity Registration (02:48)

Research County Recording (03:59)

Entity Structure Consistency (06:30)

Insurance And Risk (08:33)

State Specific Disclosures (11:06)

Contracts And Statutes (14:24)

Choosing Which States (22:09)

Fraud Concerns And Consumers (28:45)

Key Takeaways Recap (32:23)

Where To Find Curt (35:21)

Curt Moore’s Information:

Website: https://moattitlesecurity.com/moat-specialist/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moat-title-security/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moattitle

Transcript

Intro/Outo: 0:03

Welcome to Business Mastery with Dawn Kennedy, your quick under forty five minute dose of expert insights and strategies to make a positive impact on your business and life. Let's get started.

Dawn Kennedy: 0:18

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. So if you have a business in one into another state, not just state, but actually going to here who has built a regional going to talk to us all about we can do it the best way that So Curt, thank you so much for

Curt Moore: 0:47

Thank you for having me. I look forward to this podcast.

Dawn Kennedy: 0:49

Yeah, I'm excited to talk about Can you tell everyone who you

Curt Moore: 0:54

Sure. My name is Curt Moore. I'm the founder of Moat Total Our headquarters are in Oklahoma We currently operate in nine states, and we're running along to be operating in all fifty states. Our business plan, which protection products to owners title and public records We also offer a product that similarly protects property owners from squatters throughout recorded document. We actively partner with title companies, real estate professionals, property management companies, and financial advisers. But it's an interesting topic you bring up in crossing state lines. It's one thing to operate in when you spread into Texas, plan to get into all states. There are certainly some things to be considered, and hopefully I can add some value to that conversation.

Dawn Kennedy: 1:58

And I wanted to have this conversation with you, particularly because you deal with things that affect highly regulated transaction. Real estate transactions are not off the floor or the Walmart out with it. These are regulated all the way There's deed recording and all And whatever part you're in that transaction, you have to be cognizant, if you will, of all the regulations in each of the states, which is why I thought this would be the perfect topic, because if you're not in such a highly regulated industry, you have the takeaway of understanding how you can do this. Maybe you won't have as much red There are a lot of And for your industry, particularly what's tracked very carefully.

Curt Moore: 2:45

Yeah, you're exactly right. Again, if you're just operating obviously be familiar with and of state of that state. Are there any state that you to go through different states complicated than others. So make it pretty easy. Some make it pretty difficult. There's different fees that state, so that you can be entity that's approved to do And then there's, there's annual fees and different things going on. And as far as I can tell, ways to do that. But generally speaking, when you stand up as a as a company that's headquartered in Oklahoma and you decide, I want to do this in Texas, too, you're going to have to get it approved as a foreign entity in the state of Texas through the Secretary of State office. They're going to want to know your your employer identification number for taxing purposes. It's generally some insurance you're a sturdy company. You're going to be able to handle the commerce that you're faced with. But you're exactly right. Depending on what type of business you're in, we are in the business of recording public documents. So recording a public document in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, is one thing. Recording a document in Tarrant County, Texas, could be something different. The different counties have different expectations and requirements to record a document. Everything from it has to fit in this square to it has to be named something that they recognize. And I understand that. I think generally county offices aligned on that, but there are It can make it a little more But the names of our documents notice of occupancy. Those are terminologies that Recording a notice of something. It's so in our circumstances so that you don't get wrapped county clerk or I don't know I should record it. I guess my advice would be to your listeners is just be very mindful and take the necessary time to research and understand how your business is going to be perceived in the environment, business environment, whether it's another state or part of another state, and pick up the phone and call people if you want. Sure. I've never contacted a secretary clerk with questions and not to talk to you. They may not know all the answers, but they will generally try to direct you as best they can, because generally they want you or they're not trying to put the business away, but they do want you to do business that conforms with their rules and regulations. So just be mindful of that.

Dawn Kennedy: 5:44

Yeah. You mentioned registering Secretary of State. I just want to make that really So just to walk people through So your home base is Oklahoma, so you are that are domesticated. That's the terminology domesticated in the state of Oklahoma. You're not creating new LLCs in So I want to make sure that's So can you talk a little bit about what that process looks like? What not necessarily the registration, but just how do you consider and do the research? Because you could research the yourself into a ton of fees and don't necessarily have to if as a foreign.

Curt Moore: 6:27

Yeah, it's a great question. And I guess the easy answer to instantly go buy a certain, bring up a good point. You mentioned you may not want You may actually. You may want to be. But in our circumstances, we're registered as Title Security Incorporated. We are incorporated in the state We provide what's necessary for recognize our corporation And then for each state that we are for an entity name is also the same title security company, which is a corporation in Delaware. Each state is going to want to know who are you and what are you? We need to get our arms around How do we do? How to make sure you stay Make sure you pay your taxes in They have reasons why they need how you're set up. But in terms of how to set I don't want to try to practice law here, but I would say be consistent. You know, I wouldn't want to set in Oklahoma, and there'd be an corporation in Florida and an It doesn't seem so. Title security company. It just says no title security. You can get yourself really confused in the eyes of your regulators. So whatever strategy, you stick with the same strategy and just be sorry. That's the in my opinion, that's the most effective way to square yourself up for tax filings as well. The least layered and complicated to make that the softer it's going to be on your tax accounts. Sort it all out in the end.

Dawn Kennedy: 8:17

Yeah, definitely. Now you talked a little bit about, of course having your insurance and you probably because of what you do have a bond, right? And you have other things you dealing with public documents. But sure, generally, let's talk a little bit about this insurance because there, there are some business policies that might exclude certain things that are done across state lines. You may have to have somebody How did you handle that? Because I do know for what you environment, there's very going to require to protect

Curt Moore: 8:56

That's a great question. That's a great question. And I'm a big believer of make sure you have the correct and correct amount and correct type of insurance for the business, whether you're in the services industry or you're in the construction industry or you're in the more of a business like title, we're not, we're not erecting buildings, you know, we're not repairing people's plumbing and we're not on their land, so we're not going to slip and fall. So we have different insurance Ours is all about do we no harm. And not having errors and omissions, not having misrepresentations. We use our terms of service in our construction of our make sure people understand when freeze, this is what it can do. And these are the all the things It can deter someone from filing does not guarantee that someone If you're familiar with the someone presents a document and notarized, and it's not not something strange, they're I believe we can deter that from happening, but we cannot absolutely prove. So we need those types of things And then we can, if you freeze fraudulent document, you can you ahead of their subsequently quiet title action and get it But that doesn't mean you don't have to keep paying your mortgage, and it doesn't mean that you can stop paying your taxes. It's not freezing your titles So we have to. Insurance is all about Insurance is all risk. And we also use our terms of To be clear about what a purchaser of a vital security product is getting versus they might proceed. They're getting, but they may And so hopefully that answers

Dawn Kennedy: 11:03

Definitely. And your terms of service, do maybe between states? If you get, for example, the one that pops in my head is you'll get a loan thing sent to you in the mail, or they send out those things. And if you flip it over on the back, because I often read them because I don't know a nerd, you flip it over on the back that says, this section doesn't apply if you live in these states, and this section applies if you live in those states, you know how how did you find out what you had to or didn't have to include in different terms of service to be compliant in that one particular state, which to some people, especially business owners, might feel like it's maybe not a big thing, but if you overlook something like that, that can be hum a huge thing as far as the transact business there.

Curt Moore: 11:54

That's another great question. And I think where you see what of new Jersey may have a lending practices than, say, the And I'm just thinking, I don't possible that states have their experience with how legislatures can come up with make that into a law, and then So in our in title securities history of consumer lending or start to vary from state to We're new. It's a new company. It's a new product line. It's not seasoned to a point say, we need to make this In addition to your basic disclosures, we have something that, and I don't believe our deck of products, it is likely to erupt kind of a specific disclosure, but that's our circumstances. Your listeners should certainly circumstances might be. And make sure again, if you're not sure and you're developing into that state of Delaware, and they may have very specific things that you, they, your listeners may need to accommodate and put in their disclosures. So just be very cognizant that one size does not fit all in the United States. There are states that come to mind that are just completely different. It's almost like different doing something over here. That's pretty easy. You do that and you slide over Wow. It feels like we've we've met We've crossed the country, The different states are just structured differently and good for them. I think that's one of the things that makes the United States so unique and special, is states have a lot of control, and they can do as much or as little as they choose to do to protect their citizens. Just be aware of that and go in what you need to learn. There's two ways to do it. You can be prepared and do it right to start, or you can not be prepared and possibly do it wrong. And then you're going to get some kind of notice and you're going to have to correct, correct that and you're going to have to going forward and comply. So I would certainly lead to get

Dawn Kennedy: 14:21

Yeah. Would you say the same you have with your people in buying a product from you, did as far as contracting went in Because that's where I think, the contracts of what you can do business that's on the border a license in this state. Maybe you have a license in that state, or if it's if home improvement or something like that. It's what has me thinking or I don't know if they're franchised, but it's like you get a tornado goes across the state lines. The tornado did not go, oh, Yeah, this is South Carolina, Right. So there's those potentials. Did you find any contract language or any contract things that made maybe some tweaks or some differences? Where is this contract in that

Curt Moore: 15:21

Another great question. You're full of great questions And yes we did. We have our standard form notice And again, the whole basis of that is just simply to say, hey, look, I own this property name, property address. There's a legal description. I'm worried about fraud. I'm worried that someone might harm me in my property. So I'm going to record this. Notice the title freeze that simply says nothing else should be recorded without my express consent, which comes in the form of a release of this notice a title freeze and if something is recorded without that, it's brought. That sounds simple enough and I We work very hard to make that a The average layman can understand and get their arms around and think, that makes sense. I want you to proactively protect myself from someone who might try to do harm to me and my product. To answer your question, before I've got a legal team and they and look closely at state and courting practices. And we just make sure that by freeze in Florida versus not recording something that's And out of the nine states that were in so far, three of them, we've had to add some language to our document that just says, hey, look, by recording this document and we'll just cite the state statute in Oklahoma, Texas. And I think it's I can't three out of nine states. If if you record them that you could look at that from the state statute standpoint and say, which one is in charge here? Is the state, what the state is, what the state's trying to say about fraud important or more important than what title is saying? We just make a clear statement that says the owner chooses to have notes recording the governance. If there's a question between what the state statutes say and about fraud and what they're saying about protecting themselves. So it's a great question. And again, it rolls right back podcast, because different Different states have already come up and it's changes all the time. It's time fraud is unfortunately, it's becoming a bigger and bigger thing every day. And different states are taking protect their citizens from it. So we need to make sure that what we're doing is coordinated with what states are rather than causing confusion. Yeah. The contract side is something

Dawn Kennedy: 17:52

Yeah. And it's interesting the states probably also can What we would consider over here things like maybe identity theft fraud, unless you take an action So to your point about each state being a little different, even the definitions could be different and would need to be scrutinized. And that could be whether you're in a highly regulated industry or not. If you don't understand what they mean by having X, Y, z, you think you have it because you have it in your original state, you could run afoul of some regulation without even being aware.

Curt Moore: 18:34

Yeah, no, that's true. And in our circumstances, again, what we're doing is pretty new and innovative. And I can think of First time we started recording our documents in Florida. We had a county attorney just I just want to read this and I've not seen this before. I want to I want to basically do what you've already done, and you claim you've done is consider our statutes and make sure you're not recording something ambiguous. After about two days, you came back and said, yeah, you're good. This is cool. But I just wanted to make sure One of the one of the most remarkable things about recording. There's no eraser. What it's recorded, it's in And the only way you can get it. You can't get it out, but you And that was a mistake. Or here's a new version of that. Throw that one out. Don't look at that one anymore. Only look at this one. But that just makes complicated So I applaud when we get that sure that the county or we've just opine on it and say, yeah, sure I understand what you're good for our citizens. And yeah, you're good. But again, I just want to being recorded here because can't can't erase it out.

Dawn Kennedy: 19:53

Yeah, exactly. I'm having horrible flashbacks discussions back in law school. We'll get away from the property But again, highly regulated. You have to understand that if you can do business across nine states successfully with this highly regulated, then and not so highly regulated business just needs to know that if you haven't considered these things before you decide to break ground in a new place, these are the topics. They're not the fun topics, It's not as fun as buying a domain with a new state on it, or adding a web page with a new state. These are the not fun topics. And for everybody listening, you're welcome that we bring out And I don't mean dry in a bad You're killing all the fun. What do you mean, insurance? Right. Because that's not the fun part Uh, but my. Huh?

Curt Moore: 20:50

That's right. But you're going to, in my opinion, if you do your due diligence, it's. You're right. It's not the most fun thing to because you don't want to do is your CRM, do all these things, apple cart over for someday from you can't do it like this. Yeah, call us. And then you're going to have to scramble and try to understand we're going to get off track and they're going to fund their research, and they're going to cite whatever they need to cite shows you where you're out of bounds. And then now you've got chaos. I would rather avoid that at all So spend your time up front. Understand if you have And this is what I'm trying to What do you think? What am I missing? Can you direct me to someone opinion about any of this? Do it the best you can to set it tearing it down and rebuilding So I would certainly recommend.

Dawn Kennedy: 21:47

It's, I think, obvious if you have employees in different states that there's the labor law stuff. And I think it's obvious there's tons of HR people that are experts at navigating those things. But these things that you and I that I think get overlooked the necessarily considered now. My next question is, are there the statutes and said, oh, versus phase one or two. Based on what you saw, the requirements were either for registering or registering a foreign and then getting the insurance and looking at those things. Were there certain states that And if there were, let's share the state next door might look I had a franchise consultant on were like, no, there's red green states, green states. Where is it easy to sell a really hard to sell a franchise? And I hadn't really thought too much about that because McDonald's. Right. But that was that was a good But now we're talking about not business that people know, and Lewis and Clark in, if you So how did you decide on the And were there states that gave

Curt Moore: 23:11

But it's a great question.

Dawn Kennedy: 23:13

Doesn't Fulham did it.

Curt Moore: 23:15

Yeah. No. And I'm saying that's there's a lot going on in that question. So let me try to break it down. Yes, we do have a method to our in and why we're in them. But we also have what I call a state ten, eleven, twelve and on And there are considerations for our products are pointed towards It certainly works across a generally pointed at more owners with more valuable that demographic may have a which is also a huge risk for And they may even have a real They may invest in properties. Where does that happen most? So we're trying to swing into The southeast side, Florida. And then we're moving up north through the middle. And then eventually we're going But again, great question. There are certain things in to make it more onerous or enter as a start up company. I think you need, in my opinion, one of our views is let's test these things. Let's not start on slippery slope we can possibly find in the United States and see if we fall. Let's try to start somewhere chance to get ourselves stabilized, get our marketing website, and all the Bugaboos And then I think we can start climbing up the tree for the higher branches. And you brought up franchises. We do have a long term plan at It's not our it's not our mode We operate out of headquarters without having franchises. But it makes a lot of sense to let me think about it, to have local representation. And I agree with whoever you were talking to, there are certainly red, yellow and green things to concern yourself with franchising. So when we get, you know, two, three years out and that becomes a step, we'll have to be very diligent and very mindful and very wide open eyed understanding of what's it like to be a franchise in California versus what is it like franchise in Texas? It couldn't be different. They could not be more Well, Texas is basically tell us your name and give us a fee and you're it. California is way more Show us this. Show us that. Give us all this. Give us all that. Every year we want to audited Every year we want these things. And from twenty five dollars. And that may not be right now, state to probably thousands of maintain that franchise. You know, and your listeners, if that's your goal, be very wide open to look what are those requirements? And are you up for that? And, you know, to get your books audited, it's probably ten thousand or more, depending on your books and the condition, their books and the style of books, you could get yourself into some real wild requirements before you're in a cash flow steady state. Makes sense to take that on. Again, it's a great question. Each one of these states is its And they have their own rules. They have their own regulations. They have their own view on how borders and how they're going to to promote that and keep, keep, And it's your job to understand states and be compliant.

Dawn Kennedy: 27:03

Would you say that you chose the demographic of your end client environment you're entering in? Or did they both weight equally when you opened two, three, five, nine?

Curt Moore: 27:18

I think they both played in at to sell glasses or some product I'm going to have to go where Ideally, we'd like to be in to operate in, but still are target, and that's generally early stage development. I think later on we'll get into states that don't have as much of our target market in them and may or may not have even more complicated regulatory structures that will have to manage. So we wouldn't want to start on We want to start on states that target market and are not the states to operate. And just again, just to get to the team. We've had so many tests like many things to about what are engaging a conversation about The average person. I've lived in six homes in my I'm nearly sixty years old, so That's a switch about every five So what do I know if I'm not in What do I know about title? What do I know about closing? What do I know about public I think the average person just that because they don't interact So it's important for us to put understand people are concerned You cannot watch the TV. You cannot be on social media. You can't look at anything in bold red letters fraud. I think people are genuinely They just want to make sure that they're not being defrauded as part of protecting themselves from fraud.

Dawn Kennedy: 29:08

Yeah. So phishing, it's You are one hundred text Hey, your ticket is, I think they paid the ticket and it you were in. Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Curt Moore: 29:23

And a classic example, we won't but like my, my wife's mother is she gets these crazy emails and these crazy phone calls. And she will call my wife, I just got this text message. I didn't know I was even in the state of Illinois, and they got a ticket and they're going to arrest me. So I know that that is complete Just calm down. If there is truly something going on, that's not how they would interact. They're not going to come at you that do these things. I call them the bad guys. They don't care. They just don't. They don't care who they're who they're scaring is. They can attack one hundred people and one or two people, send them a check or do a credit card transaction. They win because they're doing this by the thousands and it's a numbers game. So be very careful with this fraud thing is a good message here and embedded in your podcast.

Dawn Kennedy: 30:23

Definitely. And again, this leans into why careful about who's coming in being able to cross state lines not have the best interests of On the flip side of, we receive of phishing things or whatever, the state lets something insured and they're operating, I would say also not just the end user of the state, but the state itself. Yeah. You know, it's like, why did you Like, why did you let this So yeah.

Curt Moore: 31:06

I think.

Dawn Kennedy: 31:06

I think.

Curt Moore: 31:07

I think you see that in some fraud going on. And I just think you're going to I think you're going to have reaction in our society. And if someone is harmed by action and the state is going to How did that happen? And they're just going to have So they should be not just for And I'm sure they're not just would think if I was in the approving new entities to do We certainly want to make sure The products or the services They're not harmful to our citizens, and the practices are not harmful. This is the benefit to our I think the trouble is the matrix got to make sure things are not going to get themselves a. The worst case scenario is they're going to let something in and hurt somebody and they get sued. So let's at least start with that not being what we want and trying to drive it up the ladder towards great company, legitimate business, good for our citizens and insured, properly controlled companies in our borders.

Dawn Kennedy: 32:18

Yeah, what a great point. And that just takes it full So I'm really glad that we were able to look at it from both sides, because if you are listening in and you are a company that is either considering moving into another state or you're maybe operating in two or three states, and maybe you're looking at doing more. Depending on the states and where they are geographically moving into certain states, to your point, maybe a little bit easier as far as the regulatory landscape goes. But just to kind of sum up requirements, contract requirements, website your eyes and T's and your your correct to make sure that you're And this is a very important though again, it's probably not we're gonna expand into another office space and leases, and registering that, that entity as Maybe the maybe we press a conversation and we make sure things before we sign the lease. So important.

Curt Moore: 33:36

Very well said. Very great summary. I hearken back to my prior career at thirty years in the oil and gas industry, and you know it. Sometimes you just have to look we have done this when I was There certainly are people like, acquisition over here, and But there's usually someone else at the table saying, oh, you stop. And that you got to remember that is this really complicated regulatory environment. There's all kinds of geological It's nice to have a balance. It's nice to have the all the bright lights and shiny objects flashing all over the place, but it's also nice to back up and say, what are all the entanglements that we might face, and what are all the challenges we have to go through and what it costs both to enter and to remain operating in there? Should we weigh all that out? I think we should. And when we whale that out, two or four or ten? And maybe four is the next best And because it maybe not as it doesn't have all these other out every day while we learn how Then we'll start getting towards Everything that seems like when you're trying to build a deliver it into the market and expand into multiple states. There's just constantly a best decision right now, what is for this company? And it's very tempting sometimes just recommend balancing them scope of what you're intending known before you jump in.

Dawn Kennedy: 35:19

Fantastic. So where can people find you? I know you again, you have product suite and you're selling particular products. But where could they find you? Could they follow you on Where could people watch more of A fly just came in here and

Curt Moore: 35:35

You are what I die out. Our website is title security through that website and a new freshening. So it's, we think it's a lot better form informational or dropping some informational videos on there about our products. It, we hope it's very website, but what we're not sell somebody something. And we're just trying to say, hey, look, here's something you might want to be concerned of, especially if you're in our target market, we expect you to have questions. We don't expect you to grab your your information and buy minutes on our website. We want to engage you. We want to answer your questions are right for you. And so that's where you can I've done a ton of podcasts. We've put a ton of those on the So we are on social media. It's to honor our target market. It's not our biggest place to We think about, for instance, my certainly in the target market. She's not spending any time So we do have a presence. But I would say that's the Best place to learn more about

Dawn Kennedy: 36:55

Okay. Perfect. So we will put that down inside And if you find this the day it releases or two years later, you'll still be able to find the information and make that connection. And I thank you so much for And again, in your industry, you were the perfect person to run through this. And for a lot of the audience, they, you know, again, even the most seasoned entrepreneurs, when you have an opportunity to maybe do something, it's very exciting. And then somebody says, do you And you're like, well, so that we're talking about this all upfront because I think it sets that expectation of what has to happen first. So I appreciate it. And thanks for all of your

Curt Moore: 37:39

I appreciate you and I appreciate all the challenging questions. It was a very good exchange. I very much appreciate it.

Dawn Kennedy: 37:45

All right. Thank you. All right. We'll talk to you all next time Business Mastery Podcast. Take care.

Intro/Outo: 37:55

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. If you want to learn more about dot com and you can now check us course, any of your favorite Take care.