1. Receive title order from the lender (or Real Estate Professionals in a cash purchase) – within a week or two of when buyers and sellers finalize their contract.
2. Do title search immediately – Search the land records at the county clerk’s office in the county in which the property is located.
a. We go back 30-yrs for residential purchases, and 60 yrs for a commercial purchase – search back 30 years.
b. We search for all liens that are of record against the property that have not yet been released. These are the ones that we have to pay off at closing, out of the sellers’ proceeds. This is to ensure the buyer gets the property free and clear of all liens.
c. We also find out in this search, who really owns the property and in exactly what names. Sometimes we are told nick-names, or one name, when its really in their LLC’s name, etc.
d. We also find in this search, what the legal description of the property is. An address is only for mail purposes. The actual legal description of your property is quite different, and may sometimes be up to several paragraphs in length.
e. Some of the liens we discover that have not yet been released, may in fact be errors called TITLE DEFECTS. These are common and correctable, and are usually typos, etc., but can be complex and costly in both time and money to fix. We work to correct these for you before your closing can take place. Defects can arise at anytime in the future and and for this reason title insurance exists for lenders and for buyers/owners. See “Owners Title Insurance Made Easy”.
4.
5. Get payoffs immediately – for all unreleased liens, we get the lender or lien holder to fax us a payoff statement in writing, so we can pay them off at closing.
6. Get real estate professional commissions immediately – and all other fees from the real estate professionals that need to be paid at closing by the buyer or seller. Ex: Termite report, home inspection,home warranty, seller-paid closing costs, etc.
7. Send all real estate professionals a seller-side closing disclosure (CD).
Schedule the closing with all parties, 2-5 weeks after the contract is signed by all parties.
8. We prepare the deed and set of title company documents.
9. Receive the lender’s Closing Disclosure instructions – this lists all loan numbers, prorations and lender restrictions for the closing.
10. Prepare the Closing Disclosure (CD) immediately. This is a summary of the transaction – the buyer and seller get separate CDs for privacy concerns.
12. Only after the lender gives final HUD approval will they send us the loan documents. We print them out and copy them for closing. These can be 75 to 150 pages for a single loan.
13. The lender then wires us the loan amount, which we must receive before closing is finished. This wire and the borrowers check they write at the end of the closing is where we get all the monies to pay all the closing costs and liens that show on the HUD. All monies go into our escrow account, and then we pay out 100% of those funds out of our escrow account for all the items that are listed on the HUD. The HUD is a complete and detailed record of all funds received and disbursed by the title company.