frustrating title issue

[Gene Hacker]

I closed on a property in February and received my recorded deed in the mail a couple weeks later.

Then a month or so later I received a letter from the county recorder stating that they could not process my deed. So I called the county recorders office and she told me that the Trustee’s deed upon sale was never recorded and that there is no record of the foreclosure or chain of title in place.

I had a copy of the "trustees deed upon sale" from the preliminary report which had stated: "certified by first american insurance company to be a copy of the document recorded on xx/xx/xxxx as instrument no xxxxxxxxxxxx in book page office records of Kern"
(I changed the actual info to "x"...the actual info was on the copy of the trustees deed).

But the recorders office said that the document that I have has not been recorded, in fact nothing has been recorded on that property.

So I got in touch with the escrow company which in turned got me in touch with the title company.

The title company blew me off for a week or so until I got a bit vocal and demanded answers. They told me that they were not sure how the document had not been recorded but that they would order a new trustees deed and have it recorded which would clean up the chain of title.

A couple weeks have gone by and the title company is being very unresponsive. I have not received a response other than a quick "we are following up with the foreclosing attorney".

Considering they missed it in both the preliminary title search and a final search before closing you would think they work to fix this.

As you can imagine this entire situation has been an amazing inconvenience. It has delayed the project over a month now.

I am just wondering if any one has had similar problems with a title company and what they did to resolve the situation. Trusting the title company to do their job is not looking like the best option at this point.

[Bill Gulley]

The title policy is at a stated limit and clearly it is their fault. However, if I were getting a slow response (as they have thousands of screwups I'm sure) you really need to light a fire under them.

The error can probably be corrected so they don't see that as a loss to them.

They are also working with a bank where some clerk has little motivation. However, banks are under time lines to release liens and convey deeds IAW state laws.

What they need to understand (IMO) is that there are consequencial damages for their negligence in not acting in a timely manner. Your demands need to be in writing with reasonable time allowed to cure the problem and state that you will seek indemnification for losses arsing out of their lack of timely action. The first letter can come from you, the second from your attorney. Then follow through. A copy of a pending contract may get them moving showing that you have a significant profit and if it fails to close, such will become theri problem. Good luck!