Title Companies are changing the way some Buyers are going to need to bring purchase money funds to closing. If these changes are rigidly enforce, the transition is likely to be a rough one and anyone with a purchase or sale closing coming up in the near term should expect a greater likelihood of delays / aggravation.
The long standing "best practice" for having Buyers bring funds to a closing table has been to instruct them to bring cashiers' checks to a closing table made payable to themselves.
Until now, it has just the way things have been done my whole career.
Back in June, I reported seeing a notice from one of the local Chicago Title offices indicating that CT would require all checks be made payable directly to the title company. At that time, only one or two offices were actually requiring this, and everything was business as usual.
Closing bays at Chicago Title's flagship offices in Chicago now sport notices that CT will no longer accept such 3rd party checks.
Now, effective October 27th, Professional National Title Network, Inc (PNTN) is also requiring that only incoming checks made payable directly to PNTN will be accepted. Checks made payable to individuals to be endorsed over to the title company will no longer be acceptable.
I expect that other companies in the Fidelity National family, and agencies underwritten by CT will likely follow suit soon.
Closings will still take place, but i can already envision a great many of them will be delayed while uninformed or ill advised buyers rush back to their banks to replace the checks they bring to closing with checks that the title companies will actually accept.
The long standing "best practice" for having Buyers bring funds to a closing table has been to instruct them to bring cashiers' checks to a closing table made payable to themselves.
Until now, it has just the way things have been done my whole career.
Back in June, I reported seeing a notice from one of the local Chicago Title offices indicating that CT would require all checks be made payable directly to the title company. At that time, only one or two offices were actually requiring this, and everything was business as usual.
Closing bays at Chicago Title's flagship offices in Chicago now sport notices that CT will no longer accept such 3rd party checks.
Now, effective October 27th, Professional National Title Network, Inc (PNTN) is also requiring that only incoming checks made payable directly to PNTN will be accepted. Checks made payable to individuals to be endorsed over to the title company will no longer be acceptable.
I expect that other companies in the Fidelity National family, and agencies underwritten by CT will likely follow suit soon.
Closings will still take place, but i can already envision a great many of them will be delayed while uninformed or ill advised buyers rush back to their banks to replace the checks they bring to closing with checks that the title companies will actually accept.
Comments