An Anchorage-based title agency has agreed to pay state and federal regulators up to $155,000 for an alleged kickback scheme, state and federal regulators said Tuesday.

The regulators accused the company, Alyeska Title Guaranty Agency, of paying a "sham employee" to refer potential customers to the title agency.

The title agency denies that it paid kickbacks, saying it legitimately hired Kirk Wickersham -- who owned the agency until 2003 -- as a contractor who marketed Alyeska's services to his clients at FSBO System Inc.

The acronym FSBO stands for "for sale by owner," and the company helps people sell their homes without assistance from a real estate agent. Wickersham is the sole owner of FSBO and he denies any wrongdoing, too. He was not involved in the settlement agreement.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Alaska Division of Insurance say that the title agency violated federal and state laws when it paid Wickersham part of its insurance premiums in exchange for his FSBO referrals. State and federal laws bar real estate professionals from giving anything of value to each other in exchange for a referral.

Wickersham said Tuesday the regulators have misrepresented his work for Alyeska, which lasted until 2008. He said he was licensed by the state to market title insurance and Alyeska paid him legitimately for that work.

The contract between Wickersham and Alyeska Title was a condition of the purchase of the title agency, added Alyeska president Ryan Strong.

"Alyeska Title entered into the contract in good faith, upon the advice of legal counsel and with confidence that all of its actions were appropriate," Strong said in a prepared statement.

He declined to say how much Wickersham was paid in the contract, and the amount was not divulged in the settlement agreement.

The title agency settled with regulators to avoid a "prolonged and costly court process," he said.

The state's Insurance Division director said the payments were not legitimate. "From our perspective, Mr. Wickersham was not providing services for the money he was paid," said Linda Hall, the director.

She said that the state has had a number of complaints in recent years about real estate companies violating state rules about referrals.

"It's been an allegation for a long time ... in Anchorage, and nationally," she said.

The settlement requires Alyeska to pay $100,000 -- half to the U.S. Treasury and the other half to the Division and Insurance -- in two installments in the coming year.

Regulators said they will waive a third payment of $55,000 if the title agency fully complies with the settlement and doesn't violate any more real estate and insurance laws.

This is the second time in a little over a year that Alyeska has gotten in trouble with state regulators. The company agreed to pay $400,000 to settle alleged state insurance code violations in December 2008. In that case, a former employee sold a worthless insurance policy to an Alyeska client.

Hall said she doesn't believe any Alyeska customers were financially harmed as a result of Wickersham's referrals.

"That's obviously one of our first priorities," she said.

In this case, she said, the rates that Alyeska charged its clients "were pretty comparable" with other agencies' rates.