Opening Escrow

We have a fully executed PSA now, and I opened escrow this morning. To "open escrow" I took the PSA and the Earnest Money Deposit to the Title company of choice. In this case we chose Transnation Title, officially known as Land America Transnation Title Company.

Generally, the buyer chooses the title company but Wayne & Susan are from out-of-town and did not have a preference for a local title company. In the past, if a buyer asked me for a recommendation, I have had a preference toward First American Title (formerly known as Land Title). Unfortunately, they are currently on my naughty list and I am not making them my title company of choice at this time. They did some "downsizing" and laid off my favorite escrow officer... so they could keep on some of the less tenured Spanish speaking employees.

I want to make it perfectly clear... I am absolutely NOT racist in any way, but I do have a problem when totally competent, dedicated employees are replaced just because they don't speak Spanish. It's not right, in my opinion.

Anyway... since we did not have a title company of choice, we agreed to use Transnation Title which Lisa suggested because that is where this particular builder close a lot of their transactions. This should help things keep running smoothly. The monies from the E.M. deposit will be put into a trust account. This will be held, in this case, until after the final design approval by the buyers.

Once the buyers approve of the design and the builders are given the go ahead to proceed with the construction process, the E.M. will be realeased to the builders to apply for permits, excavate the lot and purchase building materials for the project.

This release of the E.M. is not typical of most transactions. In a typical re-sale transaction the E.M. is held in trust at the title company until closing and applied toward to purchase price. But, since this is a custom construction, the Earnest Money will be released to the builders as security for their expense in the project.

Now, we wait for the drawings to be done so they can be reviewed and approved by the buyer. This may take a couple of weeks so there probably won't be much activity on the blog until then.

Carol@TopPropertiesWenatchee.com

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