My review is for Kristy's "team" at Paramount Title Carrollwood - it may or may not be indicative of what you can expect from their other offices.
A good closing agent will be accurate, efficient and proactive. They will lead you through the process, allowing time for the inevitable snafus and glitches along the way - they do this every day, while your participation in a real estate closing might be a first time event, or you might not have done it for decades. Their job isn't rocket science - all it requires is a little diligence and focus on the customer.
Paramount proved to be the antithesis of a good closing agent. I asked for the most basic information about how to access their "portal" during closing (a portal that they have the temerity to charge extra for when their competitors offer better functionality free) and I received no response for 5 days. Not even the most common courtesy of an acknowledgment of receipt of the request. Finally I sent another request. No response. Another day, another request, and finally I was told that closing information wouldn't be available on the portal.
Although they knew from the outset that my property was titled to a trust, they never said a word about the fact that because it was titled to a trust they couldn't disburse the seller funds to any account not owned by the trust. I had to drag that information out of them and then scramble to open a trust account (which anyone who's ever done it knows takes time).
Less than 2 days before closing I still had not seen the final ALTA sheet - by this time I knew who I was dealing with, so I dragged that out of them too, only to find out that an estoppel fee on the ALTA sheet was so egregiously exorbitant that it violated Florida statutes!
Less than 24 hours before closing and I was still correcting errors (now on the preview of the actual closing documents). Trying to make sense of a Disbursement form that lists the bank name, routing and account number and then instead of the bank address it has my address under all of the other bank information. They could not possibly make this more confusing or error prone! Finally I had to ask my credit union to send me wiring instructions, and they came through for me. Endless stress and aggravation, and it didn't have to be this way.
This is not my first rodeo - I've bought and sold 14 homes over the years. When we sold our Cape Coral property, I used Beycome as the closing agent. I had some issues with them during closing and would not use them again, but they were much more responsive and proactive than Paramount - in fact, Paramount made them look great, especially when I consider the fact that Paramount's fee is more than 300% higher than theirs!
Finally, Paramount is technologically clueless, as evidenced by the fact that they had to outsource the core technology of their service: the portal, and the product they chose looks like it was designed by high school kids over their lunch hour - only half the menu functions work.
I would have cut them some slack if we were in a real estate market like 4 years ago, when almost every property listed had buyer bidding wars, but this is one of the slowest real estate markets in Florida history. There's no excuse for their abysmal failure to do their job - it's just arrogance and laziness.
If you want a smooth closing, save yourself a ton of stress, aggravation and wasted time: avoid this company like the plague. read more
