Most listing files that close late were already late on day three — the resale certificate had not been requested, nobody had looked at the survey, and the payoff was still unordered. We work the front of the file so the back of it holds.
None of these are surprises to an experienced listing agent. They are surprises to the calendar, because every one of them has a clock that starts before anyone thinks to start it.
Texas Property Code Section 207.003 obligates the association to deliver a resale certificate on written request, and it gives them a defined window to do it in. Ordered on day one, that window is invisible. Ordered when the buyer's lender asks for it, it is time you do not have — and in North Texas, where nearly every subdivision has an association and many have two, it is the single most common reason a residential file misses its date.
The seller cannot find the survey, or finds it and will not sign the T-47. Either way the buyer needs a new one, and a new residential survey is one to three weeks in a busy market. That lands squarely on the financing deadline, and it is entirely avoidable if someone asks for the survey on day one instead of week three.
A payoff statement is only good if the line is frozen. An unfrozen HELOC can be drawn against after the figure is issued, and the number at the table is wrong. Add a servicer that transferred mid-transaction and a routine payoff becomes a week of phone calls.
An unreleased lien from a loan paid off in 2016. A deceased spouse still on title with no probate. A divorce decree that awarded the house but no deed was ever recorded. A solar panel UCC-1 fixture filing. A PACE assessment. Each one is curable — but only if someone reads Schedule C the day it issues and tells you who cures what.
These are commitments our escrow team can be held to, not adjectives. If we miss one, tell us.
Not the day the lender asks. The association's statutory delivery window under Section 207.003 only hurts when the clock starts late.
We ask for the existing survey on day one and tell you within 24 hours whether it is usable, so you learn you need a new one in week one instead of week four.
We do not send the commitment and wait. Your escrow officer calls you the day it issues with the curative items and who cures each one.
The heirship file, the unrecorded divorce deed and the twenty-year-old unreleased lien do not get outsourced or stalled. Attorney-founded is not a tagline here; it is who is down the hall.
A ninety-second read on your listing file: a close-risk score, a calendar back-solved from your closing date, and a curative list with realistic weeks per item.
This one is still being built. Until it ships, our escrow team will walk the same analysis with you on a real file — ask and we will do it.
File opened, receipt confirmed to both agents, resale certificate and payoffs ordered, existing survey requested.
Survey reviewed and a usable-or-not answer sent to you. Title search underway.
Your escrow officer calls the same day with Schedule B and C in plain English and a named owner for each curative item.
Curative worked, figures balanced with the lender before the CD goes out, and a signing scheduled around your seller.
Including the ones with answers you may not want. We would rather say it here than at the closing table.
In Texas the parties negotiate who selects the title company; it is a contract term, not a rule. On a listing you and your seller can propose the closing agent in the contract. Where a buyer is paying for a policy, federal law also protects their right to choose their own provider.
No, and no Texas title company's is. The basic premium is promulgated by the Texas Department of Insurance and is identical at every title company in the state. What differs is the escrow fee, which is not promulgated, and the service around it. We would rather tell you that plainly than pretend otherwise.
It depends on how quickly the county returns the search and whether the chain has complications, but the part we control is what happens after it issues: you get a call the same day, not a PDF and silence.
Usually not. Depending on the facts there may be an affidavit of heirship, a muniment of title, or a full administration in play, and each has very different timing. This is exactly the file we want early rather than late, because the path is chosen at the beginning.
No. Commissions are negotiable and set solely between a seller and their broker. A title company publishing recommended rates would be inappropriate, and we do not do it. Our seller-facing tools model ranges the seller chooses themselves.
Identical at every Texas title company: the basic title insurance premium and the promulgated endorsement charges. These are set by the Texas Department of Insurance. No company can discount them, and any company implying it can is describing something that is not legally possible.
Set by each company: the escrow or settlement fee, and the incidental charges around it. These are not promulgated, they do vary, and they are the fair thing to compare.
We would rather tell you which is which than let you assume we are cheaper on something nobody can be cheaper on.
Your buyer needs the commitment and Schedule B in hand before the option period ends. That timing is the one thing a title company fully controls.
What we do for them →What you will actually net, which repairs pay you back, and what your agents are worth on your house — before the sign goes in the yard.
What we do for them →Fee quotes that survive from Loan Estimate to Closing Disclosure, so a tolerance cure never comes out of your pocket.
What we do for them →Send the executed contract and the closing date. We will confirm receipt, order the resale certificate and payoffs, and tell you what your survey situation actually is.
