29 Jul
Posted by justin_lee in Investing From Abroad, Notary Public, r.e. investing, real estate investing
Harsh title of my post, but I needed to make it blunt and to the point.
If you’ve been following my blog lately, then you know that I’m living in Bocas Del Toro, Panama for the summer, while still doing deals back in San Diego, CA.
I closed on a deal a few weeks ago, which wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences. After confirming with Ticor Title THREE WEEKS in advance that a Panamanian notary public would be acceptable, they informed me, a day before closing, that it wouldn’t work. (They said the notary wasn’t done correctly, even though I asked them in advance to let me know what would be necessary).
Then a couple of weeks later, a friend of mine pointed me to this awesome new website, called SignNow.com. They are the pioneers when it comes to online notarization, which was made legal on July 1st 2012.
I used their fantastic online notary service, and chatted with a licensed notary public in Virginia via my webcam, who validated my identification and my signature.
I sent to the PDF of the notarized Grant Deed to my escrow officer, who then forwarded the PDF to Ticor Title, asking them if it was “acceptable”.
Of course the people at Ticor, wanting to play God for some reason in this transaction, have already informed me that the notary isn’t valid. Here’s the email thread (you’ll obviously need to scroll from the bottom up to get the gist of the entire message):
As you can see from this thread, I’m not happy because of the lack of service I’m receiving from Ticor Title. I’m paying them to do a job, and instead of working WITH me (their customer) they are working against me!
I find it incredulous that they would instantly refuse to research this and try and help me get the deal closed.
My personal situation is that I happened to be stranded in Panama City last night, because our flight back to Bocas Del Toro was canceled. Upon receiving the unhelpful emails from San Diego’s worst title company, I have decided to attempt to head to the US Embassy tomorrow morning to get these documents notarized.
The problem, however, is that I don’t have a scheduled appointment. The next available appointment is August 31st! I’m hoping that the Embassy will indeed do a job of providing services to its tax paying citizens.
I’ll have an update to my post tomorrow, but please know for now, if you’re closing real estate deals in San Diego County, DO NOT use Ticor Title. Not only are they not looking to help their customers, they enjoy making decisions on matters that aren’t even theirs to decide.
Ticor Title now holds the title as the worst title company in San Diego. In closing: Ticor Title sucks!
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9 Responses
Danny Welsh
July 29th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
1Bro, tell us all how you REALLY feel!
justin_lee
July 29th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
2Haha Danny did you ever think I was going to sugarcoat things?
Jeff Horton
July 30th, 2012 at 6:03 am
3Sad, but this is what we deal with at times. Had a very similar experience with Laurus Title that almost 86′d a 44,000 net deal. Add Laurus to the list of boneheads to stay away from!
Ken Spohn
July 30th, 2012 at 7:13 am
4I feel your pain. They mixed up the sellers proceeds with mine to the tune of $16+k. And wouldn’t make it right.
AGREED TICOR SUCKS!!!
washington seo
July 31st, 2012 at 1:51 am
5They mixed up the sellers proceeds with mine to the tune of $16+k. And wouldn’t make it right.
Solana Beach Lady
August 3rd, 2012 at 8:43 pm
6I’ve been a real estate broker for 30 plus years and have used Ticor Title for a good many of those years. In fact, I always insist that Candy Church be my TO. BTW, I also use their Escrow Service, never a problem. I think the important point everyone needs to take into consideration is that this fellow is trying to complete a transaction from PANAMA. Why he didn’t try to complete it from Mongolia, I’ll never know. Reasonable expectations are always necessary in transactions, especially being done remotely.
justin_lee
August 4th, 2012 at 7:15 am
7Hi “Solana Beach Lady”,
(I’d use your real name, but you didn’t include it).
Thanks for the comment and the feedback! We always enjoy when our readers do so.
To answer your question, I am spending my summer in Panama, not Mongolia. Just because I’m spending my summer somewhere doesn’t mean that I stop doing deals.
I noticed that you have been a broker for 30 years. Congratulations! So I’m going to ask you, what would you advise a client do if they were trying to complete a transaction from a foreign country.
I’d love to hear your advice…
These deals are a little more complex than a buyer living in Encinitas and a seller living in Cardiff.
So what should I have done?
We actually told Ticor THREE WEEKS before closing we were going to be out of the country, so this isn’t like we dropped this on them at the last minute.
I’m sure Ticor are just great at handling plain old real estate transactions where both buyers and sellers are local. Clearly they are incapable of closing more complex transactions like the ones I am conducting.
Cindy
June 14th, 2013 at 9:29 am
8Actually Ticor Title is correct. In San Diego County the recorders office does not accept electronic signatures or electronin notaries. This is not a Ticor Title rule it is a California statute. I have been an esacrow officer for over 20 years and the escrow officer should have informed the client that they needed to get the sianture notarized at the U.S. Consulate in the country that they are in. We deal with this all the time
Cindy
June 14th, 2013 at 9:30 am
9sorry, I guess I am haveing a spelling issue today :LOL electronic/signature I guess I was a little hot under the collar
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