Title Insurance with Shannah Quinn

This is episode number 207 of The Homeowner Show. Well, whether you DIY or look at hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options here for you, your home. Craig, me and my home. My name is Kevin Haggett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad you could join us for another episode. We're going to do a quick 10-minute business check-in with our returning trivia champion, Shayna Quinn, who—

Obviously not me.

Absolutely cleaned Kevin's clock.

No doubt. That's right.

So I guess the only downside is at some point in time, you might be called in to defend your title.

When they were like, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider.

Oh, yeah.

They're back.

Nice. Nice.

She's nothing like a good chance.

She's got jokes. And they're funny. They are funny. Well, cool. Well, hey, look, we're, we're really glad you're here. And, um, honestly, we just want to hear a little bit about you and, um, you know, what you do and all that kind of good stuff.

Um, so I'm Shanna Quinn, reigning Homeowner Show trivia champion.

That's right.

And I work for Envision Title, a Texas title insurance agency. Um, title insurance is the least fun part of a real estate transaction, but necessary.

So least fun in whose eyes?

The people buying or selling a house, probably.

Yeah.

Um, it's a, it's a, it's like probably the most high anxiety time of a person's life, I would say. Yeah, you're exchanging a very large sum of money.

Yeah.

It's a big deal. So everybody's, you know, feelings tend to be a little heightened. So I would say that having a good title company handling your transaction is really important.

Yeah.

And for those that don't know, I mean, like, what, what exactly does the title insurance do for the 2 parties?

So a title company is a non-interested third party whose only job is to convey ownership. That's it. So we look through the title, we get a title commitment. Basically, it pulls up all the stuff in the title. So it's, you know, your current mortgage, any liens that may be on the title, heirship issues like death.

Yeah.

Death and divorce are the least fun things to get through. We just cure it all, basically. Like, get payoff statements, get HOA statements, handle everything. If there's a lien on the property, um, that does— that's not a deal breaker. Just has to be paid, settled somehow, right? Or a letter saying they don't have to pay it after all.

Okay.

So, you know, and you've got 4 weeks. Usually standard escrow time is about 4 weeks. To get all of that taken care of.

So is it something like where the buyer could get frustrated with you just because you're telling the truth about like they're being lean on the property? I mean, because like you said, you're an earnest agent.

The buyer is usually not frustrated about that, but the seller could be.

Because they're the ones who've got to do something about it, right?

Exactly. Yeah. So sometimes they They might be selling their parents' passed away home. And they didn't know that their parents didn't pay their taxes for 5 years.

Oh gosh.

So now there's tax lien on the property that has to be taken care of with the money from selling the house. So stuff like that comes up. We work through it, we figure it out.

So do you guys just make people aware or if something comes up, do you guys get involved in any capacity?

So, um, we pretty much just tell them, right, we need to see this from so-and-so. And that's, that's kind of it. Um, because we're non-interested, then it's like, here's this.

Yeah.

We just have to— we do get the payoffs like from the banks, things like that. We'll get payoff statements from them. Um, and the HOA statement, we get that from an HOA. We don't tell them they have to get all that stuff for themselves. But, um, but yeah, other things, it's like, well, you know, we just need to see something from this. Like, let's say a contractor put a mechanic's lien on your property. Like, you had your kitchen remodeled and the cabinet guy didn't finish or didn't do his job, so you didn't pay him. Fair enough, right? Except now he's going down to the courthouse and putting a lien on your property.

Right. Yeah.

Because he wants to get paid. He doesn't care. Um, so you just have to get something saying that it's been settled.

What kind of lien is that when like a contractor—

It's a mechanics lien.

Mechanics lien, that's what it was.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a whole lot of things that happen in the transaction.

So many things. I mean, we also hold all the money. Yeah, so it's called— and, and that I think confuses a lot of people because it's escrow. And then when you mortgage your house, you also have escrow account, right? So like where your Insurance and tax money gets kept for you to pay at the end of the year is also an escrow account. So escrow is basically just a money— an account that holds money, right? So we are holding money in escrow during the transaction.

Which is, I assume that's why money can move so quickly that day, right? Why things can— because you've already got it kind of in a holding pattern, so to speak, right?

Right.

Okay.

So Basically the lent— you know, if you are mortgaging a house, when you're buying a house, if you're mortgaging a house, the lender wires the money to us and then we wire the money to the seller. Okay, and, and we pay the brokerages for like the real estate agents' commissions. Everybody gets the previous mortgage. Everybody gets paid.

That day.

That day.

Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, whenever you're going through the whole process, I mean, yeah, you've got the realtor, but then you've got the mortgage people involved, and they've got probably 2 or 3 people that are actually handling the, uh, the account, right? So you're talking to those people, and then suddenly the title person pops up, and they're like, hey, we need this, this, and this. And you're like, but I already gave that over here. It's like, no, we need it over here too. It's just there's a lot of things that go on.

So many working parts.

Yeah, but at the end of the day, Um, the place that you go to settle everything, to sign everything, is the title place, right?

Yeah.

So, um, and because we— like, a lot of things have changed in the pandemic across the board. Our whole lives kind of have changed. So actually, um, a seller in most cases doesn't have to actually go to the title company to sign. And we do, um, e-selling, like e-signing for sellers all the time. So it's like this company called Notarize. It's basically Like Skype with a notary on the other end, and they don't even have to have an appointment. They just get the link. They get on it any time of the day, and they just do do do do do sign it all online. It's done. But a buyer on a with a mortgage with a lender, they still have to come in and sign.

Yeah.

Or sign with a notary in person.

It's got a pound of flesh.

Yeah. It's got to be what's called a wet signature, right?

Yeah.

Have you ever ever? I'd never heard that. until I, you know, bought my first home.

They're like, we require a wet signature.

A wet signature. And I'm like, what is that? That sounds a little weird, but okay, whatever you need, I guess.

This fetishy—

I don't know what's happening, but I'll do it anyway. Yeah.

Um, yeah, so, uh, one thing that I guess most homeowners may not know is that you can choose your own title company.

Oh.

So it tends to just let your realtor choose for you, right? And most people don't even know that you can choose your own. Um, but if you're selling your house, most likely you're paying for the title policy because traditionally seller pays for title, even though it's really insurance for the buyer, right? But seller usually pays for it. It's a new— it's a negotiations thing. In the last couple years Lots of buyers have paid for title because it's been a dog-eat-dog world.

Yeah, it has.

Um, but we're seeing things go back to more traditional negotiations. Um, and most homeowners don't know that they can choose their own title company. Um, so we— you can choose us.

Okay, there you go.

And if your agent is like, oh, we're gonna send it to— I mean, you can say, uh, actually I saw this really funny smart girl on the homeowner show, and I want to use her title company.

Yeah, they're not talking about me. Well, I mean, since we're kind of wrapping up, I hope you're not a girl. Not today.

Well, let everybody know then, since we're kind of wrapping it up, what is that title company? How would they get a hold of you? How do they refer you over there to make sure that you handle all that for them?

Yes, so it's Envision Title, and we have offices in Magnolia, um, Esperanza, Spring office, Katy, Memorial, and Clear Lake.

Okay.

Um, and you guys are gonna tag me in the comments.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, you can just find me there.

Is there a, is there a web address or anything like that?

Um, yeah, so envisiontitletexas.com is our website. Um, my Instagram handle is @shannaquinnhtx.

Okay, great.

You can find me there.

People can follow you there?

Yeah, you can follow me there.

Great.

And that's all linked up together now because if you do it on Instagram, you're probably following them on Facebook too.

Yeah, that's right.

So it's convenient. Well, cool.

Well, thank you for for coming and giving us— I mean, this kind of stuff, like a lot of homeowners, before they get into this, they have no idea what it is. But then they get—

Honestly, when I was first approached to work in title by an owner of a title company, I had to look up what title insurance was. I had no idea.

I will do that. I need to look and see what that is.

Yeah, I was like, I don't even know what that is. He's like, you don't need to know to sell it.

There you go. All right. Well, cool. Well, thank you again. And thank you everyone who's listening right now. And we hope you learned something about title insurance. So anyway, if you haven't already, please go like and subscribe to all of our podcasts. And we're on Facebook, we're on YouTube, we're on all the places. So tell your friends.

Not on Twitch and we're not going.

No, that's so true. Anyway, we're here each and every Tuesday. So until next time, we'll see you later. See ya.