You’re paid for actual marketing services rendered at fair market value. Legitimate in theory, but MSAs have drawn heavy regulatory scrutiny — the payment must reflect real services at real market rates, not disguised referral compensation. The upside is capped at the value of the marketing you genuinely perform, and the compliance risk is high if it drifts.
You hold an ownership interest in a title company and earn a return on it, under the safe-harbor conditions . Ownership income is recurring and scales with the business — but only if the entity is bona fide and the disclosures and no-required-use rules are honored.
A joint venture is an ABA where you co-own a real, jointly operated title agency with an operating partner. You get the ownership-return model of an ABA plus a partner who builds and runs the operation and shares cost and risk. It’s usually the cleanest way for a broker to get compliant ownership income without becoming a title operator.
Book a confidential discovery call and we'll show you what a Vested title venture could look like in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, or Tennessee.