In most of our market area, unless otherwise specified in the contract, the seller pays for the Owner’s Title Insurance policy. In Florida, the person who pays for the policy gets to choose their settlement services provider.
Does that put buyer’s agents and their customers at the mercy of the listing agent and the seller about where they will close? Not necessarily.
If you want the access, accountability, value, and the same team that helps get your listings to the closing table to work your selling side transactions as well, you can ask the seller to close with us.
All you need to do is to put in the “additional comments” section of the contract, “Title Insurance and Settlement Services to be provided by Watson Title Services of N FL Inc.”
The seller may line it through, but every month, we have a lot of sales associates bring selling side transaction to us this way. If listing agents or sellers ever have questions about closing with us, I’d love to talk to them about the benefits.
Give it a shot on your next deal.
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rule, the creditor must deliver the Closing Disclosure (CD) to the consumer at least 3-business-days prior to the date of consummation of the transaction.
If you have a closing between now and the end of December, remember there may be an extra twist at closing that listing agents need to make sure their sellers understand.
The Truth in Millage (TRIM) notices are out for all the counties in our area.
There is an important detail about Death Certificates to remember if the death took place in Florida. There are two versions of death certificates, one “long” and the other “short.” The long version has the cause of death. The Clerk of the Court will not record a death certificate that has the cause of death on it (the long version).
As you may have heard, pending the expected signature by Gov. DeSantis, there are some changes on the way in Florida that should help the closing process.
If you have not already, one day you may be asked by a buyer or a seller, “Do I own the mineral rights?”
Thanks to a lot of hard work from the Real Estate community, including our own Russell Grooms, reform on the estoppel letter front was just signed in to effect by Governor Scott on June 14th.
The Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) has determined that prepayment for estoppel fees for homeowner and condominium associations is a violation of s. 626.9541, F. S. because it is an unlawful inducement to the placement of title insurance.
My Agent Greg 