How do you challenge Escrow w/ all the garbage fees

[Darius Moezinia]

I am in a Real Estate transaction in which the agent/ seller selected the services.

I made suggestions to use a different escrow company that I had a great experience and very good rate. But was overruled.

Now, 2 days before the closing, I got the Estimated Closing Cost Statement form for my approval with bunch of garbage fees high rate and escrow company is refusing to remove or provide a discount( no matter how I plea). So I have refused to sign and give my blessings and do not know what is next or what my options are.

Help.

What are my options? what can I do? (I did ask the agent for a rate quote during the negotiations, which I never got and thought she would do right by me.)

Am I in beach of the contract or???

[Chris Mason]

Ideally, the time to negotiate this was earlier. 

Things I've seen, food for thought...

• Seller's side insists on using their company? Great, seller's side pays a quarter, or half, or all, of the junk fees.
• Buyer's agent (ie YOUR agent, YOUR employee, who works for YOU) insists on using XYZ title which is $1000 more expensive than ABC title? Great, buyer's agent is covering the difference. 

Because the latter one is negotiated between you and your own agent, it shouldn't be too late in the game to put that one on the table.

For the lurkers and for future deals for you @Darius Moezinia, you as a buyer can pick the company you want and have your agent write right there in the addenda "title shall be X company, escrow shall be with Y company" (In NorCal title/escrow are amalgamated, down there you can/do have different firms).

I disagree with the way title/escrow fees are traditionally handled in California. "Pre Escrow" isn't actually a thing, or at least it doesn't need to be. And the fact that it exists, this phenomenon where the listing agent picks, and the buyer is expected to pay, can actually lead to some shady business (in addition to just being plain weird). 

For example, what if title is clouded and the seller might not even have any lawful right to even sell that home at all? Listing agent can just "shop" for prelims until they find a company that doesn't discover the cloud on title, and use that company. <-- have seen that happen & caught it. Was there ever a time that it happened and I did not catch it? Hell if I know, it's not like I'm a title officer, I just randomly stumbled across something that the listing agent probably would have preferred I not notice, and made 3 phone calls to 3 different title companies who all told me about the cloud when they looked up that address, and how they never heard back from Listing Agent Joe after they sent him the prelim for the "pre escrow."