Stewart Title

I just bought a studio apartment in SD, Stewart title where the company handling the escrow process, escrow agent Dana Holloway was in charge on this process. After the completion of the sale, I was contacted by my realtor saying that they made a mistake and credit me with $ 250 instead of the buyer! when I called Dana Holloway asking her to elaborate on how that happened, she said it was human error and that she and her company where not going to do anything about it! it was the attitude and tone that really annoyed me. Human error happens all the time, however, a professional will own their mistake and correct it. I will never deal with them again. This time it was a $ 500 dollar mistake, next time it may be in the thousands of dollars.

In the midst of a refinance I received an email and phone call from a representative of
Stewart Title asking for details about the loan so they could prepare documents
for signing. Since I was not a newbie to the process I knew this was a strange request and made a choice to consult Unilocal prior to providing personal information to
strangers. I am so glad I did and I want to say thanks to all the posters who saved my family lots of money. Here’s how. After reading the Unilocal reviews of this company I referred them to the Mortgage company for all information and verification.
Turns out the Mortgage company had no idea Stewart Title would be contacting me and was quite angry that they did because they could see the Title company had requested that we come to the signing with a large Cashier Check in hand. This was not required by the Mortgage company. Stewart Title had used the wrong figures
for the contract in their documents and inflated the amount of impound funds to be collected as well as doubled their fees.
In the end, all the documents had to be changed and I believe the main reason for the contact was not to verify document details that they already had but to advise us to have a Cashiers Check ready to turn over to them so they could take out a fee twice as high as that they agreed to with the Mortgage company.
Therefore, it is because of the dedicated users and posters on Unilocal who detailed their
bad experiences with Stewart Title that my family avoided losing lots of money.
Ours was a VA loan and all veterans should be aware of the pitfalls out there
.Don’t be deceived. Tell your mortgage company to contact someone else or verify all statements and requests from Stewart Title in the 619 area code.

A friend of ours bought a house and we referred them to Cecily. She did a great job, our friends were super happy with her service. She has great attention to detail; was very courteous and pleasant to work with. They had a really great experience and we will continue to refer business to her. Thank you Cecily for helping our friends!

«CPU Department» of Stewart Title:
The WORST RUN DEPARTMENT I have ever worked in. The lack of management is the problem. There is NO communication with the employees, no feedback on how the department is doing. Employees are not asked for their input on how to improve the department and there is always a lot of whispering with the HR department and the «supervisor», Marissa. She comes in to work and goes into her office and closes her door and it stays closed most of the day. The employees must teach each other because her idea of teaching is telling you to go on the «shared drive» of your computer and pull up written instructions. That might be ok if they were thorough and clear. Not the case. It’s a mess. I don’t expect that department to last much longer.
The rating I give them is a big fat ZERO! Do not waste your time applying here unless you are a glutton for punishment and like the stress of wondering whether or not this is your last day.
My experience in the Accounting Department for 10 years was a great job and a very well run department.
FORMER EMPLOYEE

Read NY times article: A Trusting Couple, Now Thrown for Two Loops. This company is hurting such a nice couple. They have done so much work to help sick children, friends, and strangers. Their door is always open and welcoming, often a safe harbor for those in need. See what Stewart Title is doing not to cover a bad contractor who may have aided a thief that stole millions using this couples property without their consent. Stewart Title was the company for most of the stolen property used for mortgages without the owner’s knowledge. Even when the husband was in the hospital for open heart surgery, this company is fighting his fake signature. Who wants a title company that does this to a person who owns property that is essentially being stolen from them by the thief and a title company?

Please choose another escrow company. We trusted the recommendation of our realtor instead of paying close attention to the Unilocal reviews (almost every branch review gave a reason for concern). Our escrow officer needed to be more pro-​active — ie calling the lender in a timely manner to determine the closing process, timeline & requirements. Every time we would call for a status, she was rude, abrupt and found a way to tell us that we are not her only clients. She needed to communicate more with the lender on behalf of the borrower who is paying for the escrow service. This company needs to improve on: timeliness of communication, organization skills (we also had problems with missing paperwork), customer service skills, and if their escrow officers are indeed overloaded, hire more and better escrow officers.

We just did a refi through our credit union and went to Stewart Title to sign escrow papers. Afterwards I saw the previous 1-​star reviews; I’m glad I didn’t see them before. :)
I can’t comment on the fees as I don’t know what’s fair & reasonable, especially in today’s climate and it’s been 10 years since the last refi. I just figure it’s like airlines and hotels — where more charges are «a la carte» to provide more visibility (and annoyance — HA!)
In any event, I would like to give a HUGE compliment Jane, the notary, who we met with at Stewart Title to sign our paperwork. She was on time, friendly yet no-​nonsense and very efficient… we were in and out in 20 minutes.
My husband has done many more home purchases and refis than I have — and he said it was his best experience ever.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! DO NOT USE THEM!!! I’m a first time home buyer (now owner) and though I had absolutely no choice but to go with this company since it was the seller’s choice, I would have strongly fought their decision if I knew what I know now. I’ve never in my life been treated as badly as I was when I went to sign my escrow docs. For a little background. I was sent the forms with the estimated fees. After looking them over, I was extremely confused and bothered that many of the fees were blatantly BS. Stuff like «email processing fee — $ 50», «courier fee — $ 60», and «entitlement fee — $ 100» were found all over the estimate. After calling Christine and questioning the fees she was pretty rude about it and claimed they were all reasonable fees and that some of them would be removed depending on what was needed. Some of the fees she couldn’t even explain herself and had to ask other people in the office that also had no clue about the fees. I was shocked, they wanted me to sign off on fees that may or may not be charged and pay for email processing fees that she explained went towards «paper and toner cartridges». For any other business that’s considered OVERHEAD COSTS!!! I’ve never heard of a business that could get away with nonsense like this. Anyways, Christine told me when I show up to the escrow office and sign my final papers the numbers would be adjusted to what they should be. I took her word for it and waiting for what was sure to be a special day in my life. Nervous and excited at the same time, I drove down to the office in the middle of rush hour and was called up by Christine on the way. She was annoyed and was wondering where I was claiming that the Notary had been waiting there for 3+ hours even though I had only found out that I could come in a half hour before. She blamed it on my loan guy and made me feel guilty about it which was VERY unprofessional. I get to the office and Christine is no where in site. They rush me off to this VERY tiny little conference room with barely enough room for 4 of us that were in there and I had to rush through signing the papers. Christine was still no where to be seen and never introduced herself. One page into signing I look at the document before me and once again I see the «estimated fees» that I had seen weeks before. No changes, still hundreds of dollars of BS fees. The notary went over and got Christine. Christine comes in all huffy and puffy and says that I have to sign it if I want the house. She claims the fees are still just an estimate and I have to sign off on them and they’ll give me back whatever money they don’t use after the fact. HOLY CRAP!!! I have never in my life signed off on hundreds of dollars of fees that may or may not be charged. Yes, I realize that the taxes and interest and a few minor charges will change over the course of a day or two but the rest of the fees should not change! Even at this point when she comes in, she didn’t introduce herself. She just said I either sign it or I can leave. I had no choice and her attitude made the situation that much worse. She also went off on me about not bringing a few pages of documents that they had sent me and that she had to re-​print ‘em out. Aren’t they charging me for the paper and toner cartridges anyways?! Even the notary clearly couldn’t believe how we were being treated (though she was very professional and kept her mouth shut about it). Over the course of the hour or so no one offered us water or anything else. It was around 5 and we were finishing up and we just kept hearing people leaving. I joked that we were going to be the last ones there and we would get locked in. Sure enough, we open the door to the tiny room we were in and all the lights were off except a few emergency lights and I have no clue if anyone was even there anymore. Christine had apparently left and didn’t even let us know as well as the receptionist and everyone else. When walked out we just left the paperwork and shut the door behind us. To this day I just can’t believe horrible of an experience that was. On the positive side, they did process my paperwork and I did get the house. They also took off a few of the BS fees but they still ended up charging me for the ridiculous «e-​mail processing fees» and some other stuff that to this day I have no clue about. I probably got scammed out of at least $ 100 but I have absolutely no recourse for it since I had to sign a blank check. If you’re on the seller side and it’s your choice to pick the Title company, please do the buyers a favor and AVOID this place!