★★★★☆
Last summer I did a refinance and this was the Title company selected by the lender and broker.
First issue is they found some judgements of two individuals with the same name as my husband. Well a simple search on the counties website I was able to locate the last 4 of the social whom they judgement belonged to which did not match my husbands. The second judgement was from years before we moved to Texas or were even residents of Texas. To clear that up I had to drive 35 mins across town to simple say no neither of those are my husband no he was never married to so and so. He’s currently overseas and cannot do it himself and since I have POA they said I could do it in place of him, yet I had to remind them to get a copy of the POA while I was there. Had they done a sufficient job especially for all the fees they charge they would have been able to easily prove those judgements weren’t ours because me going over there and making a statement is not proof at all just a super inconvenience for me.
That should have been the first red flag and I should have requested another title company because the next situation was even more comical and completely absurd!
I went in for closing and Norma Federico said she would need to speak with my husband sometime that day because we were using a power of attorney. That is not how a power of attorney works at all. I have a power attorney to manage anything and everything without my husband. Had my husband been in a combat zone this may have been impossible. Not only that, Norma failed to let us know she was going to request to talk to him via FaceTime in advance because there is a 16hr time different and it was 1am in Korea when she let me know and impossible for me to get a hold of him. Three house purchases and two sales all done with a POA, never once have they needed to contact my husband for verification. If that was the case a POA would be worthless.
Lastly, a week after closing I check the previous mortgage company to see if the loan had been paid. Of course another problem arises. So I call my broker who then contacts Norma and she states “she forgot”and it was too late that date to submit the transfer so it would take place the next day. That’s an additional week+ that I had to pay interest on that loan because she didn’t do her job.
Like I said I’ve purchased 3 homes in three states, refinanced one years ago, sold two homes, so clearly I’m not new at this but it appears Stewart title is. They lack knowledge on things as simple as a POA