Best title company in Goodlettsville, 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 Goodlettsville 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 Goodlettsville 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. Goodlettsville is about forty minutes up I-65 from our Franklin office, and we have closed there many times.
We have done this before. We know that convenience is a primary consideration when the closing office is not around the corner, so we make it convenient. We have mobile notaries who come to your kitchen table. In most cases, depending on your particular situation and your lender, you can close with a remote online notary, which works like a Zoom call except that you are signing. And in special cases we come to you ourselves. Distance is a logistics problem, not a representation problem.
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 Goodlettsville
Goodlettsville sits in two counties, Davidson and Sumner, and the side your house is on decides which Register records the deed, who sends the county tax bill that comes with the city's, which utility supplies the water, who issues the permits and which school system the address is zoned for - and a 37072 mailing address does not even prove the house is in the city.
The listing says Goodlettsville. So does the mailing address, and so does the contract you signed or are about to sign. None of them answers the question this town turns on: which county? Most of the city's people live on the Davidson County side and the rest on the Sumner County side, and that line decides where your deed is recorded, who bills your taxes, who supplies your water and which schools serve the house. Get that answer before you sign; the title search, the tax proration and the permit questions all start from it.
Send Vanderpool Law a Goodlettsville contract, and before anything else you learn which county, which Register and how many tax bills the house carries - the blanks this town's contracts leave open.
We record in both Nashville and Gallatin, so your title is searched in the right county's books and the deed reaches the right Register the first time.
Adding on in Davidson or building new in Sumner, Vanderpool Law asks the permit questions before you become the owner who has to answer them.
The Davidson County side. The southern part of the city, where most of its residents live. The deed goes to the Register on Deaderick Street in Nashville, county taxes to the Metropolitan Trustee, water to Madison Suburban or Metro Water, and the schools are Metro Nashville Public Schools. Confirm the school for the exact address in Metro's Zone Finder before schools become the reason you signed.
County: Two counties: the southern part of the city is in Davidson County (seat: Nashville), the northern part in Sumner County (seat: Gallatin).
The full local guide, with its sources, is our Goodlettsville 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.