In Southern Ca the seller pays the largest percentage of the title and escrow fees so it is customary for the seller to pick. In Northern CA the buyer pays the most fees and it is the buyer who picks, which is only fair.

It is open to negotiation and as the buyers agent I would always like an escrow that I know. I used to fight to get the escrow for my buyers until I realized that I was having to give up things in more important areas such as price etc.

I now pick my battles and many times allow the seller to pick the escrow.

Hi Tony,

Bob is exactly right....it's rare that the buyer has a choice. But let me explain a little bit why. Escrow is a neutral 3rd party to California transactions. They can only carry out the wishes of the two parties...all of which is agreed to by both buyer and seller in writing. So you don't have to be concerned they are doing something to favor the seller. It's true that some brokers are affiliated with an escrow company, and that is disclosed to you....but often this works in your favor because they might have a reduced fee due to this relationship.

Make sure you and your agent choose the home inspector, lender and appraiser....these people should be working ONLY for your interests...but don't worry about escrow, they are not biased entities. They can't take any action that you don't authorize.

Good luck on your home purchase! If I can help in any way...let me know.

Karen

Tony, while the first two answers are somewhat irrelevant, because one is in another state, and the other is in Northern California, ( where the title and escrow are with the same company.) the situation is vastly different in Southern California, and Orange County, in particular.

In 32+ years of selling real estate in South Orange County, I could probably count the number of times, I, as a buyer's representative, had the ability to exercise the choice of either title or escrow, on the fingers of one hand.

The usual fact is, the seller, or more specifically, the seller's agent, calls the shots on these choices in more than 95% of transactions, in my humble opinion.

Tony:

The primary reasons you choose your own title company are:

(1) The experience of the company,
(2) The security of their insurance product and
(3) The relationship the title offer and escrow team has with your Realtor. Realtors like working with their own title personnel because of longstanding relationships and trust. We DO NOT like working with title officers we don’t know.

NEVER choose a title company because their rates may be lower. That can be like paying less for a frontal lobotomy.

Who gets to choose? Totally depends on who will be paying for your title insurance and escrow fees. The party that pays the fees is the party that gets to choose. We have differing rules in side-by-side counties here in our area. In one county buyers pay title and escrow costs and should therefore be allowed to choose. In the next county, it’s the exact opposite.

Here are some caveats to these rules:

(1) If you are buying an REO, the asset manager will choose the title company regardless of whether or not they actually pay the title and escrow fees and regardless of whether or not it is a RESPA violation to do so. Don’t like it? Don’t write an offer. Complaining won’t work and will not change anything.

(2) If you are buying a probate or short sale that has had a pre-escrow opened for a long period of time, it makes practical sense to stay with the exiting pre-escrow, even if you end up paying the fees. You can always ask the seller to cover the cost of title insurance and see what they do.

Your Realtor should be able to tell you who pays what in your county.
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Tony,
It really depends on your state law but my overall answer would be yes. In Maryland it's the buyers right to select their own title company. Different companies have different fee schedules. If you select your title or escrow company you can compare services and prices.