What does a title company do?
At its core, a title company is an insurance agency for a title insurance underwriter. Think of your auto insurance: the agent is the local office you call, and the underwriter is State Farm or whoever actually carries the risk. A title company is the agent. It searches the county record for the underwriter, clears what it finds so a policy can be issued, issues the owner's and lender's policies on the underwriter's paper, holds and disburses the money as escrow agent, and records the deed. Those are real services, done for the insurer and the transaction. By Tennessee law it does them as a neutral and cannot advise either side.
A law firm that offers title services is a different kind of office. Vanderpool Law also issues the policy as an underwriter's agent and closes the transaction, for the same fee, but the search is read by a lawyer, the documents are drafted by a lawyer, and Vanderpool Law sits on your side of the table at closing. A different kind of office, for the same fee.
What the law lets a title company do, and not do. A title insurance agency is, by definition, an agent of a title insurer: it issues policies under the standards the insurer prescribes. The law lets it maintain title plants, issue abstracts and certificates of title, and act as escrow agent. It may not practice law or do law business, which includes advising any person as to the law for a fee or acting for them in a representative capacity. The agent sells and services the policy; it does not represent the buyer or the seller.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 56-35-102 (a title insurance agency acts for the insurer) and § 56-35-103 (what it may do); § 23-3-103(a) and § 23-3-101 (what no corporation may do).What a title company helps with
Finding out whether the seller actually owns what they're selling, and whether anyone else has a claim on it. Getting the old mortgage released and the stray lien paid. Making sure the money moves only when the documents are signed and the deed can record. Insuring you against what the search missed. That is real work and a good agency does it well, the way a good insurance agent does, and it is fair to say so. It is also fair to say what it is: the agency side of an insurance product, done for the insurer and the transaction, not for you.
Is a title company the same as a lender? No. The lender makes the loan and sends closing instructions; the title company follows them. Does the title company pay the seller? Yes: as escrow agent it disburses the seller's proceeds at closing, after the deed records, from the funds the buyer and the lender sent in.
What it doesn't help with
Whether to sign. What the inspection clause actually lets you do. What happens if the appraisal comes in low. Whether the seller's last-minute demand is one you have to meet. Those are legal questions, and the office that closes your deal as a title company is forbidden to answer them. At Vanderpool Law, the attorney closing your file answers them, because that is what representing you means. Same policy from the same kind of underwriter, same fee, and Vanderpool Law reads your contract before you sign and sits on your side of the table at closing.
A title company is the insurance agent. Vanderpool Law is the lawyer who also issues the policy. Same fee. Write in Vanderpool Law, and we read your contract before you sign.