Rainier Title

Outstanding!!! Christi Mills did a fantastic job and all the title staff were in top of it. Highly recommend! Realtors. the updates to me and to other agent and clients were helpful and in a timely manner…

You are pretty much stuck with the Title Office the real estate agent selects. I wish Real Estate Agents would stop picking the title company for you and give you a list to select from.
Good points: I was out of town, entire transaction handled by email/​FedEx. 98% of questions I had were responded to quickly by email. No charges for FedEx and Wire transfer fees, WHOO HOO! These fees should be absorbed by the Title company in their «settlement fee.» Bonus: They provided a label for me to use to FedEx the package back to them.
Not so good points: The transaction was a «split’ sale (Owned property with a business partner). I requested split HUD statements showing our respective portions of the contract price and expenses. They waited until the last minute to tell us that split HUD statements can’t be done, They just gave some «excuse» and not a legal reason. I had to pin down/​interrogate a manager by phone after sale was done to get «real» reason. (Some «legalese» in the RESPA law which I haven’t verified yet…). I would have appreciated being told this up front instead of treating me like a mushroom and holding out until the last minute. Even then, I don’t see why they couldn’t have done the «legal» copy, then, made «unofficial» split statements for each of us. HUD statements are cumbersome to read and understand, but I HATE it when Title Companies take this «attitude» of, «We are God, we know how HUD statements work, but we don’t want you to know, we just want you to trust us, and don’t ask us deep questions.» Every Title Company I’ve ever worked worked with has taken this attitude and Rainier proved no different.
Another irritation: In the city where the property was sold, the city utility required final bill be paid through closing, can’t pay it separately. (ok, fine…) Closing date was prior to month end. Rainier informed me city would be «notified» of the closing and would read the meter on the day of closing to get the exact amount. However, Rainier failed to tell me WHO was responsible for «notifying.» The city got the payment from the title company (several days later), but city was never «officially notified» of the closing (found out by calling the city) and never read the meter on closing day, and we were billed through month end. Amount wasn’t much, but it’s the principle! I don’t blame the city, I blame Rainier!
Also, they had a software problem whereas we were charged twice for a minor idiotic county fee. First, the idiotic County fee was buried inside the County «transfer» tax. Then, the idiotic County fee (not blaming Rainier for the idiotic fee, just saying it’s an idiotic County fee that’s required to be charged on home sales…) was again charged as a separate line item. How I caught it was I knew that the county transfer tax was a very specific percentage carried to exactly two decimal points. When I «did the math» I found that the amount calculated by Rainier was a bit more than the amount I calculated using the specific percentage. When I inquired as to why their amount was more than what I calculated, I was told the difference was for that minor idiotic County fee. I pointed out that they charged me that idiotic County fee again on another line. They did graciously remove the duplicate fee, citing «software problems.» A manager later told me (after I had to pin them down and interrogate!) that they have a process to catch these things and it would have been caught even if I hadn’t caught it. I’m skeptical as to whether it would have been «caught» because of the minor amount. (But hey, it’s the principle!)
Title Companies need to learn that the CUSTOMER is paying them, the CUSTOMER is allowed to direct how they perform that service (not the other way around) as long as the customer isn’t asking for anything illegal. Let’s just say, when it comes to Title Companies, it pays to figure out how a HUD statement is calculated, don’t rely on the Title Company to tell you because they don’t really want you to know, Title Companies would rather you just act like a mushroom and go along with everything and don’t ask deep questions. HUD statements are complicated! It takes a math and legal genius to make sure you aren’t being charged more than you should be charged for various county taxes and fees.
I’m giving them only three stars because of the issues I outlined above. I will say the personnel are probably competent, but they ignored me on issues important to me and failed to follow through with the city on utilities. But if I had been given the REAL reason up front (instead of treating me like a mushroom) on the HUD statement or at least somewhere along the process (instead of at the last minute…,.), if they would have at least agreed to do UNOFFICIAL split HUD statements just to make it easier for both of us to do our taxes, and followed through with the city, I would give them more stars.