Quoting my realtor, “This escrow is slow.” Not only that, the escrow officer is a poker faced ill mannered person. My wife and I are not the only ones who noticed this. Most, or even ALL, of the people who had to deal with her noticed it too.
Actual Experience
As first time homebuyers, we were armed with ignorance. This escrow officer sent an email that said, “Escrow Instructions”. I did not know what that meant. Due to my ignorance, I understood that as instructions for my wife and myself to do to start the escrow process. The body of the email was the information about routing numbers, name of the bank, etc. I had to email her back saying that there are no instructions for me to follow and that I only have received some information. She replied by saying, “These are my escrow instructions.” She presumes that I know what escrow instructions meant. This really gave me the conclusion that I am not dealing with someone with an awful personality.
Our first encounter with her was the initial deposit for the down payment. She seemed nice at first. Hence, I said to myself that I could have been wrong in thinking that she is a terrible person. I told her that I wanted the documents to be both mailed and e-mailed.
After about a week, and when my wife was about to pick up our daughter from school (the escrow office is situated along the way to the school), I received an email from the escrow officer that she had sent documents in the mail. When my wife got to her office, she had her mean looks and did not want to give my wife copies of the documents. She talked to me over the phone saying that she had already ordered one of her staff to mail the documents them an hour ago. She added that I should have informed her that we would pick them up before she sent them. (How in the world would I know that she sent them an hour ago.) When my wife and daughter got home, one of the escrow staff called saying we can pick up the documents saying she was stopped before she was about to mail the documents.
After two weeks, my lender needed to contact her. The lender found out the hard way that this escrow officer has an attitude. When we were about to sign the loan documents, the escrow officer presented us something new which was not talked about. She told us directly to sign something that did not sound right. My wife and I did not sign the new document and had to bring it home for our realtor to see. I learned from my realtor that it is not right for the escrow officer to deal with us directly. She should go to our realtor first.
The only positive thing about her is described by my realtor’s transaction coordinator (who was an escrow officer before), she does know her thing.
By all means, do not choose this escrow, if you already have, try and find out if you can still change her.