title search charge

[carabeau]

We had a cash offer on a property contingent on home inspection.Our contingencies after inspection were not met and deal fell apart.We have an agent in Brunswick Georgia where sale was.We agreeed to pay for inspection and termite but have now received a bill for the title search from the closing lawyer who said our agent ordered it.Our girl says I said to order this search which I did but assumed she would do this after contingencies were met.We have a misunderstanding.We want to do the right thing but don't want to be taken advantage of.Who should pay this bill?We feel our agent jumped the gun---we were shooting for a two week closing because it was cash.We never pressed for an exact date though.

[Malok]

You already have a thread going:
http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread17001.html


No reason to post twice IMO.

[darrenwoodard]

Title work takes time, therefore the agent had to order it with your two week closing. If everything went well with the home inspection, and you couldn't close because the agent didn't order the title then you would have been pissed about that. You walked from the deal and you are responsible for all fees up to that point. Now on the other hand, the agent should have contacted the closing attorney right away once the deal fell apart. That could of saved you some money.

[RonnieG]

Interesting. Here, most title companies only charge for the title work if & when the deal closes successfully. If it doesn't close, regardless of the reason, they suck it up themselves as overhead cost of doing business, and no one pays. However, since the seller generally specifies the title company, the major work only has to be done once, and if one deal fails, there is a 70% chance (allowing for listings that never sell) that there will be another deal at some point, and they only have to check for any lien changes since their last search.