How long can a title company hold deed?

I am in Florida.

How long can a title company wait to record a warranty deed? After I closed on a house at that title company, I have desired to re-sell it. I have been waiting a week now for the title company to take the deed to the courhouse. Small town, they send a woman over every day to record deeds, but for some reason, mine has never made it over yet.

Do I have any recourse? Why could this be happening? Can they just "hold onto" the warranty deed? There is no mortgage , as I paid cash. The title is in good order. This seems like pure sloth, or incompetence.

What shall I do?

thanks for any help, info, advice.

Rice

[HomeGuru]

The title company is required and obligated to record the deed at the earliest opportunity.
The company should be State regulated. Contact the State agency and report the sloths. They may be sleeping upside down in a tree.

The former owners of this property are still in the house. They are staying until their other house deal closes. it could be weeks from now, as there is no set date.

I check FL Statutes and could not find anything regarding recording a deed in a timely manner. Perhaps they think as long as it is not recorded, the contract is not "complete"? (The person at the title company where the closing took place is a very good friend of theirs, and would probably hold the warranty deed back.)

What does not recording the deed do as far as property taxes are concerned? Does tax liability incur from the date of closing, or the recording date?

Someone told me that it isn't even required that a deed be recorded at the courthouse. I find that hard to believe!

When you take out a loan, I believe, the lender wants the contract recorded before they will fund the loan (Send the escrow company money)So, they do a timely recording.
So in a normal transaction when a lender is involved, closing is considered when it is recorded and that's when ownership passes. That's also when you'd become responsible for taxes.

But you paid cash - so they got your money before it is recorded. You need to determine when it closed. Look at your closing papers (they must have given you a closing statement) see what it says about the seller & buyers tax dates. If you can't understand it -- go to another escrow co or a title company and ask them to look at it and give you some advise. They should know when your title insurance went into effect. I assume you have title insurance if you went thru an escrow c - it's not required in all states.

Now I believe you were correctly informed that it is no requirement to record. However, the reason you record is to protect yourself and make it public record that the property belongs to you.

Otherwise, I'm not trying to scare you, but they could sell the house to another person. The other person would have no way of knowing you even owned the property. Soon you got two owners, but the first to record may be in the ownership
position. If you were in the house, you'd have a better chance of saying it's mine as possesiion is 9/10 of the law.

I would go down to the escrow company and talk to the manager. I believe they have to have a person who is a "limited practice officer" (In WA State) who is responsible for all the legal stuff. If you don't get satisfaction call the state licensing board, call someone. I'd even ask your escrow company for the deed and take it to the recorders office myself. If the house is yours and you paid for escrow services, then they should hand you the deed.

If they make excuses get a copy of it, I think you can record anything as long as your pay a recording fee. Get something recorded!!

[Edited by archarrell on 02-11-2001 at 03:29 AM]

Thanks for that advice. I plan on doing exactly that on Monday morning.

I appreciate the answers here!