Communication: From the beginning of the process, communication was poor. The e-mails we were sent were pretty much copy+pasted -- which is totally fine, but if that's the case they should be thorough and informative. What we received was often missing pertinent information or instructions on how things should be filled out and when/where they should be sent after they were filled out. When we asked questions to fill in the gaps, our questions were often half-answered; I would send a numbered list of questions (for example, 1-4) and only questions 1 or 2 would be answered. Responsiveness: It was often difficult to get a response when we did have questions. The responses we received were not prompt; we often had to wait most of the day to receive an answer, and in time-sensitive situations like this, we found that unacceptable. Closing issues: When closing approached, everything fell apart. Neither us (the buyers) nor our agent or lender were able to get in touch with the person handling our case from the title company. We did not receive our final closing disclosure information (with the final cost, and the wire transfer instructions) until around 5:30pm -- and we were scheduled to close the next day at noon. This forced us to get our banking situation in order the morning of closing, which was extremely stressful. Even worse, the wire transfer instructions we received were incorrect -- they were for the wrong house. The account number may have been correct, but when you're talking about wiring your *life savings* somewhere, the fact that any aspect of the instructions would be wrong is terrifying. We were so uncomfortable with the situation that we refused to wire money to the title company; we chose to do a cashier's check instead, for safety reasons. Communication problems came into play again, also; when we brought the incorrect wiring instructions to the person's attention, we told them that we would be using a cashier's check because we were not comfortable wiring money anymore. The person completely ignored that, did not respond to any of our concerns, they did not apologize for the mistake (or even acknowledge that it happened); they just sent a new attachment on an e-mail that said something to the effect of "Your wiring instructions are attached to this e-mail". There was no response at all to our question trying to confirm whether it would be ok to use a cashier's check. Interestingly enough, the e-mail said something to the effect of 'we will NEVER change your wiring instructions, disregard any changed instructions as it may be fraudulent' -- so the same e-mail with new wiring instructions told us not to accept any new wiring instructions, for fear of fraud. Missing Items: The person handling our titling also completely failed to order the site survey that we requested, and we had to close without that information. This should probably be a 1 star review; I am giving 3 stars only because of the fact that we actually did manage to close. Also, when we called Marti -- the emergency contact -- on the morning of closing (to confirm that a cashier's check would be ok, because there was no response to our question before), she was wonderful. She made us feel very at ease, told us that everything would be fine, and was really the first positive experience we had with the title company.
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Canada
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