We have bought, sold and refinanced multiple times and this is the worst escrow office we have ever met.
I was selling a house this time.
We accepted the offer on 5/19 and was scheduled to close on 6/9. Susan Sayers from this title company was the person who handled our case initially. However, she went on vacation on 5/22 to 6/9. Really? Why did they have someone who was going to go on a vacation in 3 days to handle our case? We actually would be fine with this if everything went smoothly. Hell no!
Before we came into contract, we had a question regarding the transaction of selling house. Our agent asked Susan Sayers and was given a clear answer. However, after Susan Sayers went on vacation and Robyn Sayers took over our case, Robyn refused to give a clear answer. We were okay with what Robyn did if this was an isolated case, as the question was tax related. However,they should have known the answer to our question, as long as they handled same situation before (and we believe that was why Susan was able to give a concrete answer). We mentioned to Robyn about what Susan told us, but was told that Susan was not reachable since she was on vacation. Yes, one shouldn't be disturbed during his/her vacation. But shouldn't she/he pass the work to the colleague clearly before going on a vacation? We had to spend hours trying to confirm what Susan told us.
We were scheduled to sign the seller' documents on 6/7. Usually, we would expect to receive the estimated seller's statement one or two days before signing. But guess what? We received this document right on 6pm on 6/6. Should we have any question regarding the statement, who should we turn to for help? Or should we delay the signing in this case?
The buyers were scheduled to sign on 6/8. We asked if we could leave the door key and garage opener at the escrow office, so that we wouldn't need to go to the property just to drop off the keys. They said no. Well, they charged me almost $2k and refused to keep the keys for me for one night.
Okay, the last thing. What does "close" mean to a seller? Does it mean turning in the key and losing the house ownership? I guess no. It means that we should receive the funds on the day of close, right? But to this company, "close" simply means getting their work done, taking the money and walking away. Like I mentioned above, we as the seller signed on 6/7 and the buyers signed on 6/8. But the title company actually finished all the documents at 4pm on 6/9 and initiated the wire transfer after that. Of course, we didn't receive the money on the day of close. 6/9 was a Friday. We still didn't receive the funds at noon on the next Monday. So we called this company and asked them to trace the money. All we got was to keep waiting. They simply didn't even want to make an extra phone call for us after charging $2k from us.
Maybe all I mentioned are detailed things and may not matter to some people. But it is the details that distinguishes good and bad companies. All I can tell is that this is a company who wouldn't want to take any additional responsibility no matter what. They are very self-centered and definitely below the average of all the title companies we have used.
We will make sure to never use this company again and would recommend everyone to avoid them. They only had 3.5 stars before my review and most title companies have 4 to 5 starts. I guess this tells something. read more