Best title company in Franklin, Tennessee?
May we suggest a different question?
In the biggest legal and financial decision of your life, do you really want to choose a title company that is legally prohibited under Tenn. Code Ann. § 23-3-103 from giving you legal advice? That is the Tennessee Paradox.
If that question surprises you, it is not your fault. Like most residential real estate consumers, you have probably never heard of the Tennessee Paradox. So here is the truth about a title company, what the Tennessee legislature said about it, how Vanderpool Law is different, what a Franklin closing has that the contract does not mention, and how we can help you.
The truth about a title company
Every title company in Tennessee issues the same policy at the same rate filed with the state. The settlement fee runs about the same from office to office, usually $500 to $900. What varies is care and speed, and some of the offices in and around Franklin are very good at both. But none of them can tell you what your contract means, what to do when the seller skips the repair or the earnest money is in dispute, or whether to sign. The law forbids it.
What the Tennessee legislature said about it
The Paradox: Tennessee law protects your right to choose who closes your real estate deal. Tennessee law also says a title company cannot practice law or give legal advice.
The Result: use that right to choose a title company, and you have put the biggest and most important legal and financial transaction most people will ever have in their lives in the hands of an office that is forbidden from advising you or protecting your interests.
This is the confusing part for the consumer. There is an attorney in most of these offices. You see a lawyer at the closing table and think, I have legal representation. You don't. The reason you don't is that the Tennessee legislature said you can't: a company cannot practice law, and the lawyer who works for a company represents the company. "Attorney-owned," "attorney-led" and "attorney-supervised" describe the business, not you.
How Vanderpool Law is different
The question to ask is who at this table is allowed to be on my side. At a title company, no one. At Vanderpool Law and Title Services, we can, and we frequently do. We have helped more than 15,000 people all over Tennessee navigate the tricky legal and financial situations that arise in everyday residential and commercial real estate transactions. There is very little we haven't seen. We do the title work, we close for the same fee a title company charges, and we represent you. Our office is here in Franklin, on Seaboard Lane in Cool Springs, and we have been closing here since 2002.
At a title company there is a reason you never get an engagement letter: you are not represented. At Vanderpool Law you are, and it says so in writing. Sending us a contract does not make you our client; an engagement letter does. The reason is simple. You have a lawyer on your side, not one who works for a title company.
Closing in Franklin
In Franklin, the house under that contract may sit near a river, inside a historic overlay or in a neighborhood still being built - here is what each one means for you, and what to do about it before closing day.
You may have signed the contract on a Franklin house already, or it may be sitting in your inbox. Either way, it is the same paperwork you would sign anywhere in Tennessee, and it says nothing about the ground under the house: a river, a historic overlay, a builder still selling, farmland with a tax history. Each of those can change what the contract costs you, and each is easier to deal with before you sign than after.
Ask Vanderpool Law to look at a Franklin address before you sign, and you hear about the flood map, the historic overlay and the greenbelt status while the contract can still change.
Your deed is recorded at the Williamson County Register on West Main Street, where we record every Franklin closing, so a question about an old plat or an easement on your lot is a short trip across town, not a phone tree.
Buying in Fieldstone Farms, McKay's Mill or another deed-restricted community, ask, and Vanderpool Law reads the declarations with you before they bind you, not after.
Downtown and the Historic District. Before you plan a new porch or an addition, find out whether the house is inside the Historic Preservation Overlay - inside it, the contractor waits on a Certificate of Appropriateness. The National Register listing around the square, on its own, does not start that review.
County: Williamson County - Franklin is the county seat. Where your deed records: Sherry Anderson, 1320 West Main St., Suite 201, Franklin, TN 37064 - weekdays 8:00 to 4:30.
The full local guide, with its sources, is our Franklin page.
How we can help you
Before you sign or after, every buyer and every seller gets four complimentary services: contract review, a preliminary title search, a preliminary settlement statement, and a savings check. All you have to do is ask. Send us the contract and see your settlement statement in about five minutes; then talk it over with Jim Vanderpool, who answers your questions as your lawyer, complimentary. When you decide to hire us, the engagement letter says what we do for you and what it costs, which is the fee a title company charges.
The questions behind the search
Same policy. Same fee. Vanderpool Law sits on your side of the table, and offers four complimentary services before you sign or after. All you have to do is ask.