We just worked with the Bellevue office for the escrow in the closing for our house. Throughout the process, Pacific Northwest Title Co. was unabashedly mediocre. Their emails were sloppy and unprofessional, their paperwork was incorrect, and, most importantly, they filled out the HUD-1 form incorrectly in a manner that would have cost us thousands of dollars had we not caught the errors. Their job is to fill out form letters and replace ""(insert name here)"" fields with actual names. Even this they could not do, as they misspelled my wife's name incorrectly about half the time, and tried to charge us for services they did not render (for example, they included two $75 dollar charges for notary services we did not use, which, by the way, cost $20). When we called to make corrections, our reception was rude and defensive. Selling a house is a big deal for most people, but Pacific Northwest Title Company's approach made it clear that we were just another form in their pile that they couldn't be bothered to fill out correctly.
When we complained to the manager, however, the company did the right thing and offered to refund our escrow fees. Even that email, however, contained typos... that doesn't speak well for their professionalism, does it?
In short, there are few ventures as annoying at every step as real estate: if you do get stuck with the Northwest Title Company, expect to spend a lot of time reviewing the documents they send for accuracy. At heart, they are probably good, but the work we saw was incompetent and sloppy. Be careful.
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