Actually you do not owe the Title company anything.

During the refinance you would have paid for Title Insurance. This is to guarantee that all liens are paid upon closing. Any shortage after that point is the reponsibility of Title. They will undoubtedly pursue reimbursement and may even threaten litigation. In that case have a lawyer draft a response and that should take care of it. This is what all that expensive title insurance pays for.

Here is some additional info. Hope this helps.

Your loan is paid off in full, due to the help of your Title Company. The Title co. paid money on your behalf that you owed to CHASE. Yes, you should pay it, it’s your debt… it’s not a fee the Title co. is now trying to charge.

It’s really your debt, you need to pay it. The title company sold title insurance in the new lender’s name to guarantee a clear title. The insurance pays for any mistakes so that your new mortgage company is protected. The debt is no longer a lien against the property due to this action;however, this doesn’t dismiss your obligation to pay your original debt. The title insurance, in essence, bought the remaining outstanding balance as a debt and so now you owe them.

Now, if you do not pay the title company, they place a new lien on your property and this could also affect your credit rating. It is still your debt and obligation, nobody else’s.

If you paid for an owner’s policy seperately, you could, in some cases, be covered for the difference.

Bottom line, pay up.

If the error was bonafide i.e in goodfaith, then reimbursing the title company is the right thing to do…if it was due to incompetence then that’s on them….so find out why the payoff amt was off

At closing you sign a compliance agreement for such things. The title company bases payoffs on numbers given them by your lender; therefore, it is NOT a title company error. The payoff can, and often does, change if closing is delayed. Rather than have your payoff climb, the title company will pay the difference, and then ask you to reimburse them.. Your payoff could have cost considerably more, were it not for this courtesy on the part of the title company. YES, you owe it, so pay them.

The title insurance company was responsible for obtaining and remitting a correct payoff. This is why you paid for title insurance. It is their responsibility to provide accurate figures. Technically, they didn’t clear title for you by paying off all outstanding liens.

I suppose you could go to the wall and demand they pay the difference as compensation for their error but, in reality, you owed the total amount due to clear the lien. However, if your refinance lender predicated their loan amount on being sufficient to payoff the liens per the title company supplied figures and you didn’t get cash back sufficient to pay the lien in ull and leave you with any expected cash I’d write a letter to the title company’s head office demanding they pay the difference or you will “take appropriate action”.

Usually, when there’s a title error, the title company is insured to pay for mistakes. But I’ve heard of cases where the cost is split three ways–between the buyer, the seller, and the title company.

You are the person that owes the money. The title company did you a favor and made up the difference so you could close on the refi on schedule rather than having to post-pone it to update the pay-off.

You, notthe title company is obligated to pay your outstanding debt. By paying off the balance, even if they made an error, they assumed the debt that you owed. Pay them back.