A settlement agent your closers don't have to chase.
What a lender needs from a settlement agent is not what a realtor needs. You need title fees that hold from the Loan Estimate to the Closing Disclosure, payoffs verified by phone rather than by email, a package back without three follow-ups, and somebody who picks up when your closer calls at 4:40. Here is how we operate, and the vendor information your third-party management will ask for.
What we commit to on your file
- Same-day acknowledgment. Send the file and it is opened and confirmed the same business day, with the closing window on the calendar in writing.
- A named contact, not a queue. Your closer will know who has the file, and that person answers the phone.
- Commitment turnaround confirmed in writing, then hit. If something in the search changes the date, you hear it from us before it is a problem.
- Attorney review on every commitment. Our principals are Pennsylvania attorneys and licensed title agents. Exceptions get resolved rather than forwarded to you with a shrug.
- Payoffs ordered and verified by verbal callback to a known number, never accepted from an email.
- Seller CD prepared and balanced with your closer before the table, not reconciled after it.
- Milestone updates you don't have to ask for: order opened, commitment out, payoffs verified, clear to close, recorded.
- Rate-lock-aware scheduling. Tell us the lock expiration when the file opens and we work backward from it.
Why title work is where a lock quietly dies
Western Pennsylvania title has a personality, and it is not a friendly one. On files out here we routinely deal with oil, gas, and mineral reservations sitting several owners back in the chain; coal severances; property that passed through an estate without a deed ever being recorded; unreleased mortgages from banks that no longer exist; and municipal and school liens that only surface when somebody actually orders the lien letters.
None of that is exotic here. What matters to you is when it gets found. A reservation discovered in week one is a conversation; the same reservation discovered the week of closing is a lock extension, a re-disclosure, or a borrower who walks.
That is the argument for attorney review on every commitment, refinances included, rather than only on the files that already look complicated.
Where title fees go wrong on a Loan Estimate
Pennsylvania title insurance rates are filed and regulated, so the premium itself is not where quotes go wrong. These four are, and every one of them lands on you as a tolerance cure rather than on the settlement agent who quoted it:
- Reissue and substitution rates on a refinance. Quoting the basic rate when the borrower qualifies for a reissue rate overstates the fee; quoting a reissue rate the borrower cannot document understates it. We tell you which rate we used and what it depends on.
- Simultaneous issue on a purchase. The lender's policy issued alongside an owner's policy is not priced the same as a standalone loan policy.
- Endorsements priced late. If your product needs specific endorsements, name them when the file opens and they go into the first quote rather than showing up on the CD.
- Realty transfer tax quoted at the customary two percent. This is the expensive one, and it is a Western PA problem specifically.
Transfer tax on a $300,000 purchase — four municipalities in Allegheny County:
| Municipality | Total rate | Tax due |
|---|---|---|
| Plum Borough | 2.0% | $6,000 |
| Monroeville | 2.5% | $7,500 |
| Penn Hills | 3.0% | $9,000 |
| City of Pittsburgh | 5.0% | $15,000 |
Quote a Pittsburgh file at the customary 2% and the transfer tax line is $9,000 light before anyone has looked at it. We publish every municipality in Westmoreland and Allegheny so your disclosure desk can check the rate in about ten seconds: transfer tax rates by municipality →
Funds, wires, and the controls your auditors ask about
- Settlement funds held in separate, federally insured fiduciary accounts, reconciled daily.
- Positive Pay on disbursement accounts and dual authorization on large wires.
- Verbal callback verification on every payoff and disbursement instruction we receive — the same rule we ask of your borrowers, applied to ourselves.
- We never change our wire instructions by email, and we tell every borrower in writing that a change arriving by email is fraud until confirmed by phone.
- Closing traffic runs on our own email tenancy, separate from any other business.
- Borrowers get a plain-English closing-safety page and a one-page PDF with the first email, so the wire-fraud conversation happens early rather than on funding day.
Vendor information sheet
The one-pager your third-party management team asks for: entity details, principals and licensure, contacts, escrow and wire controls, document delivery, and counties served.
The items that depend on agency licensure — license number, underwriter and CPL source, and the insurance certificates a lender files alongside them — are marked Pending rather than guessed at. We would rather your file show an honest gap than a number that has to be corrected later.
Have your own vendor packet? Send it to [email protected] and we will complete it and return it.
Borrower handouts: the refinance closing guide and what not to do before closing both take your name, company and logo, then print. Nothing you enter reaches us. There is also a closing timeline calculator for contingency and commitment dates.
Questions lenders actually ask
Can you issue a closing protection letter?
Not yet, and we will not pretend otherwise. A CPL is issued by the title underwriter, not by the settlement agent. Our Pennsylvania agency licensure is pending and the underwriter appointment follows it. Until that appointment issues we cannot provide a CPL, and we will tell you that up front rather than let a file reach the table without one. When it issues, the underwriter will be named here.
How do you quote title fees for the Loan Estimate?
From Pennsylvania's filed TIRBOP rate schedule, the same way every time, and we tell you which rate we used so your disclosure desk can check it. The fees that move between LE and CD are usually the four above: a reissue or substitution rate on a refinance, simultaneous issue on the lender's policy, endorsements priced late, and transfer tax quoted at the customary two percent in a municipality that does not levy two percent.
Who prepares the seller's Closing Disclosure?
We do, and we balance it with your closer before the table rather than after. Tell us your preference on delivery and timing when the file opens and we will work to it.
What do you need to get on our approved settlement agent list?
Send us your vendor packet and we will complete it. The settlement agent information sheet carries the entity details, contacts, escrow and wire controls, and counties served. The items that depend on licensure — agency license number, underwriter and CPL source, and the insurance certificates lenders file with them — are marked pending and furnished the moment they issue.
How are payoffs and wire instructions handled?
Every payoff and disbursement instruction we receive is verified by verbal callback to a known number, never accepted from an email. Settlement funds sit in separate, federally insured fiduciary accounts reconciled daily, with Positive Pay on disbursement accounts and dual authorization on large wires.
Do you close at our office, or only at yours?
Either. Our Murrysville office at 3950 William Penn Highway (Suite 5B), your office by arrangement, or the borrower's realtor's office, including early evenings. Tell us what the borrower needs.
Which counties do you close in?
Westmoreland and Allegheny primarily, and the surrounding Western Pennsylvania counties. Full service area →
When does a file need a lawyer, and who pays for it?
Some files need more than a settlement agent: an estate in the chain with no administration, an entity seller whose authority is unclear, a deed that has to be drafted around a divorce or a trust. Where a party needs legal work, Ament Law Group, P.C. is engaged directly by that party under a separate written engagement and a separately disclosed fee, and the Affiliated Business Arrangement Disclosure is provided. Use of the firm is never required and the party is free to use any counsel they choose. William Penn Settlement stays the neutral settlement agent on the file. More on that line →
Send us a file, or send us your vendor packet.
Email [email protected] or call 724-733-7700. Same-business-day acknowledgment on every order, and a straight answer on anything we can't do yet.
Place a title order Vendor information sheet