When your home transaction approaches the closing phase, it’s crunch time. All the preparation, anticipation, and negotiation come down to this—a stack of paperwork that will either seal the deal, or spiral the transaction apart.
Who do home buyers and sellers count on to make sure that the latter doesn’t happen? That the transaction doesn’t fall apart at the last minute, to the personal and financial detriment of everyone?
That important duty falls to the title company. While often a background player that the parties don’t meet until the eleventh hour, the title company is an important player in the
transaction.
We are the fixers, the coordinators, the professionals who take a chaotic assembly of contracts and supporting documents, and line them up like dominoes.
A few signatures, and a cascade of legal consequences results in the seamless transfer of a huge asset—a home, a piece of land, a building or series of buildings with attached personal property.
Giant loans get paid off, service providers get made whole … all within an hour, seated at an unassuming conference table in the title office.
Title mistakes are disruptive and expensive. Every home transaction needs the services of a competent, trustworthy title company.
The team at Triumph Title has over 75 years of combined experience in real estate law and the title industries.
As a neutral third-party serving both buyers and sellers in the residential real estate closing process. We act with expertise and fiduciary duty, guarding against the risk of loss and making sure that contracts are executed to the letter
The best closings are barely noticeable. If we, the title company, do our job right, the closing is positively anticlimactic, considering the significance of the moment—the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars in asset value, possibly the acquisition of a home and a family’s biggest investment. That’s why some real estate agents bring champagne, balloons, or other goodies to closings to mark the occasion!
From our perspective, a superior closing experience entails …
… may be depending on a successful closing to afford his/her next home or other investments. We make sure that all current liens and loans are identified and discharged in the closing, so the seller doesn’t even have to worry about it.
We make whole all vendors on the seller’s side of the transaction, including the seller’s agent, attorney, and tax advisor as needed. We also make sure that the seller gets refunded prorated balances (s)he no longer owes, such as prepaid taxes and assessments that are the responsibility of the new owner.
After a successful closing, the home is a part of the seller’s past, with no lingering questions, liabilities, or responsibilities. The loan, all liens, ownership, covenants, and responsibilities—they’re all settled. The property is now the buyer’s responsibility!
… has their own cast of characters to coordinate, including lenders, appraisers, inspectors, and another slate of agents, attorneys, and tax advisors.
Our job as closing agents is to keep all the ducks in a row. The buyer’s only job is to coordinate with their real estate agent, wire funds, show up to closing, and pick up keys.
We disburse all funds to the right recipients, and coordinate with the buyer’s lender so the mortgage note is ready to go at closing.
We also file and record documentation of the sale with the requisite government clerks so the buyer’s ownership is easy to confirm, especially if they decide to sell the property down the road.
In some ways, the “point of no return” has usually already passed by the time closing arrives. Once sales contingencies expire—inspection periods, option periods, financing contingencies, etc.—then the deal is pretty much full-steam-ahead. The closing is, in some ways, a formality.
But it is an important formality, and it cannot be skipped. Many laws apply to the transfer of real estate, and real estate contracts for sale are complicated. Yes, there is no backing out before you arrive at the “closing table,” but the actions taken at the closing table are what make the sale of property official.
After the closing, the deed of the property has legally passed from the seller to the buyer—the buyer now “owns” the property. The cash sales price, wired into escrow by the lender or the buyer or both, has been released to the seller—or, more often than not, most of the cash goes to the seller’s mortgage note holder to settle the debt, and the seller gets to pocket the difference.
Either way, money and ownership have changed hands, per the terms of the contract for sale. The buyer gets the keys and full rights to occupy or dispose of the property. That’s closing!
When closing refers to the meeting where the actual settlement will take place, you should expect to spend about an hour at the title company’s office signing documents and transferring funds. However, if “closing” is referring to the actual process, it can take anywhere from 30 to 45 days to work through the residential closing process and finalize the transaction.
This long window is to give various parties time to perform necessary action, including:
Actually, the cast of characters at the closing may change from transaction to transaction, but there should be no one scary or surprising. In fact, some closings may only have two attendees, despite the dozens of people involved in a sale. This is because, if the title company does its job well, the hard work is already done and closing is just a formality—just paperwork.
Here’s who is most likely to be present at a residential closing, and what their roles are:
What the buyer should expect at closing.
If the buyer’s portion of the escrow (the down payment and closing costs, less any deposits) is not funded yet, the buyer should expect to wire the funds or bring a cashier’s check for the amount needed to fully fund the escrow. This amount is stated on the closing statement. The title officer will present the buyer with an organized stack of documents to sign. Once signed, the property sale is official. Some documents will be filed in courthouses or with government clerks for safety and easy reference. After the transfer of property is official, the buyer may pick up keys and other access instructions from the title agent, selling agent, or seller. Whomever hands it over, the buyer is entitled to them as the new owner of the property. Funds may be released from escrow to third-party providers on the buyer’s side, like the buyer’s agent and/or attorney.
What a seller should expect at closing.
Unlike in commercial closings, in residential closings the seller has only a small role in the closing, other than to hand over keys and/or access instructions. Most of the seller’s paperwork is executed before the closing. After the closing, the seller will receive instructions for how to claim any proceeds of the sale (s)he may be entitled to, usually by check or wire transfer. The seller may also receive documentation that any loans paid off by escrow have been satisfied and the liens released. Funds may be released from escrow to third-party providers on the seller’s side, like the seller’s agent and/or attorney.