DO NOT USE THIS "TITLE COMPANY". They are not only unprofessional and have no concern or compassion for anyone they are also dishonest, and the worse title company I have ever dealt with. I was involved in a transaction with them and they took forever to do anything, no documents sent to anyone, funds not disbursed in an appropriate time. We were selling our home and the buyers and their horrible agent (Ana Lamba who will also receive a bad review) chose this company. They new all along we needed the funds to purchase out new home and they delayed the original closing by over a week. They also did not have any answers about when they could record the transaction. After signing paperworks it should take about an hour max to close the file and these dingbats seem to need more time. Maybe instead of paying realtors to use them they should instead invest in some training, professionalism or customer service skills. or better yet JUST CLOSE YOUR DOORS! You don't deserve to be in business. read more

Tony is very knowledgeable, he gave me all the answers to me with clear details that I need to know and easy to understand. Every process in my case went read more

I highly recommend SMS title and Escrow!! Tony was extremely helpful and made the process of getting my loan so easy. He is so patient and took the time in explaining everything thoroughly step-by-step. I also want to thank Joy from movement for all that she did to help me step by step and for always taking my calls with my many questions! Thank you Joy and Tony read more

I worked with Francella at SMS Title and had a truly fantastic experience!!! I highly recommend her and her team. She was kind, very intelligent, responsive, hard working, and excellent to work with! She made this an easy and stress-free process and we are SO thankful! I will definitely use SMS Title for any of my future needs. 10/10!!!! read more

I am a former Fairfax Police Detective and a very successful real estate investor. In 2019, Virginia law changed and the buyer now gets to select the closing settlement agent. That means, sellers may have to deal with non lawyer closing companies such as this terrible company. I assure you that I would have never hired this company. In my real estate transaction with them, I paid a little extra and hired my own Virginia real estate lawyer to do my side of the settlement. Still, since the buyers settlement agent is responsible for making all the disbursements, I am stuck dealing with these idiots! Absolutely terrible service. I just finished writing my Virginia State senator pleading with him to introduce legislation reversing the law or changing the law that the buyer and the seller must agree on the closing company. Why in the world would any seller want anyone other than a licensed Virginia lawyer, experienced in real estate law to perform a transaction, like real estate? I would have never dealt with these clowns if the law didn't force me too! Write your Virginia delegate and senator today for the law needs to be changed! To get answers I had to personally drive down to their office in the middle of the virus and had to speak with an employee without a mask on. At 2:35 pm, these clowns had not even electronitly filed the paperwork with the Court because they were so busy yesterday! Unbelievable! I am going to post the video I took on line! Terrible settlement company! read more

If I could give this title company ZERO star I would! I am a real estate agent. Never had such a bad experiences like it with other title companies in the past. Horrible customer service. Irresponsive. Very difficult to get a hold of their processor, not replying emails, not returning calls. No pre-closing docs being sent prior to closing. My seller complained about them a lot too. And two weeks after closing my brokerage still has not received the commission check. While a case I closed yesterday, the checks are already arrived at my desk now. How ridiculous is that. Whenever I call them, at least 20 minutes of transferring from one person to another person, it seems no one knows what they are doing. Beware, stay away from this company. read more

I purchased a condo during the summer and SMS Title handled the settlement. Lorena was super nice and helpful whenever I called the main desk. When we got the first copy of the settlement papers, Francis carefully and patiently explained any items we weren't sure about. I didn't see or hear much from Karla but she was able to do a quick turn around of the settlement papers when my agent and I said we were heading over to the office. Tony, the owner of SMS took care of the signing personally - he was sharp and knowledgeable and got us through the paperwork in a snap. Everything went off without a hitch. Much appreciation to SMS title! read more

My closing was very smooth, great service and highly recommended SMS Title and Escrow.

I'm lucky to meet Tony who I worked with for my house refinance closing case. Tony is very knowledgeable, he gave all the answers to me with clearly details that I need to know and easy to understand. Every processes in my case went smoothly on time. read more

This company is suck to do closing settlement. From the President to the Receptionist are a joke, none of them reads any documents carefully that sent to them such as HOA. Suggest people stay away from SMS title company locates in Annandale VA. After settlement, I still deal with my old HOA to get the refund....smh. It should have been done through the settlement and SMS didn't because the President didn't read. Totally a joke and suck company to do business with. STAY AWAY FROM SMS TITLE & ESCROW!!!! read more

I see, based on other reviews, that I am not alone regarding my opinion of SMS Title and Escrow. If I could give zero stars, I would. The Better Business Bureau is my next stop. STAY AWAY. As the Seller, we didn't choose them. the Buyer did. BAD MOVE. Today alone, I have called them no less than 7 times trying to get the documents we need to sign and send back for closing that is in 4 days. That doesn't include the calls that my agent has made over the last several days that have gone unanswered. We cant be at the settlement. The documents were supposed to be sent last week...come to find out, the atty that is "preparing the deed is not ready yet." I asked to speak with her. "Shes not here" I thought she is working on the deed. "She works from home" Give me her number. "I cant" Have her call me. "I cant" Goodness Gracious!!!! I have been begging for a settlement sheet. finally I have it several items are incorrect.This is part of a 1031 exchange, and I have ZERO confidence that it will be correct. It appears that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. I have no confidence that the closing will happen on Friday. I have bought and sold many, many property's and NEVER have I dealt with a title company that is so inept and unprofessional. This company should be closed down. read more

I'm not one to do this but in case anyone was ever considering working with SMS title please don't. My client and I decided to change title companies on March 23 and it took SMS a month to get the approval from HUD due to lack of urgency or care (a friend of my client referred them so she believed they would have her best interest). The closing company is the only one that has access to Yardi portal and they are in charge of the doc upload. I emailed and have done everything I could but they are the only ones that should be communicating to hud about closing. We were set to close June 20 and the contract expires June 22. On closing day they told us we couldn't close, they had gone ahead and changed the closing date to one past the expiration of our contract. They put in an extension without my clients authorization and after she did not agree to the change. We found out the day of closing they had just submitted all docs on the DAY OF CLOSING. HUD requires the closing company to submit docs 5 days prior to closing, they kept us in the dark and the attorney, Tony Serra, yelled at my client and attempted to force her to sign an extension she did not agree to. Since they did not not answer our emails or calls until the evening of the expected closing date we moved forward with the extension in order to make sure my client is able to close but she has also involved her attorney in this matter. This is not how her home buying experience should be! AGENTS BEWARE read more

I had a great experience with their team. Carolina was always on top of our case and made sure we closed a week sooner than expected. I liked how they helped me throughout the process and made electronic copies of all documents for me as soon as they were available. read more

So full disclaimer - after reading some of the initial reviews, my wife and I were concerned! But as with any review, it's all relative and the facts of each individual case should be taken into context. In our case, we had the pleasure of working with Tony and he was truly the epitome of great customer service! He went above and beyond to ensure everything was in order for our closing and even staying much later at his office to accommodate our schedule. We have nothing but great praise for him and as they say no news is good news. In other words, out closing was uneventful as it should be and we had no issues whatsoever. Tony was particularly helpful to not just read everything we were signing but to also explain it to us and in some cases break down to laymen's terms. I would defiantly recommend him and when our time comes again in the future will seek him out! I feel with his knowledge, attitude and personality if you can not get along or appreciate his professionalism then you might be the problem! read more

As another reviewer said, I am giving one star only because it's the lowest one available. I wish there was an option for zero. I was the seller in a home sale, and of course the buyer selected this title company. For starters, at closing SMS did not bother to get a forwarding address for me, which will be important in a moment. And later I noticed they put the wrong year on my settlement statement - right date, but put 2019 instead of 2018. One of the items deducted from the sellers funds was for the second half of the 2018 real estate taxes, which SMS said had not yet been paid by the mortgage company and that I would get an escrow refund. So, a couple weeks later I get the final statement from my mortgage company, and (surprise) the mortgage company had paid those real estate taxes after all - and the payment had been made A FULL FOUR WEEKS BEFORE CLOSING! I called my mortgage company to confirm that they had indeed paid the taxes, and they said that when this happens, the county would refund the overpayment to the last payer (in this case, SMS), and that I would need to get my money back from SMS. This is where the fun starts. I called SMS and the person answering the phone could not even locate my file until I looked up the case number and gave it to him. I will refrain from naming this person publicly, but he'll be the one making all the mistakes is this tale of incompetence. At this point, we are a full four weeks after closing, and I've been out of more than $3,000 that I was owed on the day of settlement. So this guy says he'll call county and get back to me, which he did. He said the county told him the "check was queued" for payment, and that when SMS got the check, they'd write me one for a refund. He said to give it a week. So one week later (now five weeks post-settlement), I called and talked to the same person, who claimed he'd called the county the previous day and was told the "check was queued" for payment. I asked how a check could be pending for a week, and he did not know. I asked who he had spoken with at the county, and he said he did not get a name either time. Hmmm. So I called the county myself and was told that no refund had been processed, and that if one had been, the account would not show as overpaid. The county employee gave me his name and direct dial number asked me to call back in a week, and said if there was still no action, he would call SMS himself and straighten it out. At this point, out of frustration, I contacted my listing real estate agent to warn her to avoid using SMS. She sprung into action, called SMS, and found somebody else to get things moving. I guess the lesson here is that SMS is more worried about making a real estate agent mad than getting sellers their settlement money on time. Of course they deducted their fees from my proceeds on the day of settlement. Long story short, after another two weeks and multiple follow-ups, I FINALLY got a check from SMS - a full SEVEN WEEKS after settlement. So to recap: (1) SMS obviously checked with the mortgage company about final mortgage payoff before settlement , but clearly did not bother to check about real estate tax escrow, (2) I had to find the mistake for them. If I had not reconciled my final escrow statement from the mortgage company, I wonder if SMS would have figured it out. (3) Even if they did figure it out, would they have been able to send me a refund? They didn't bother to get a new address. (4) What title company, who should deal with counties on a daily basis, calls TWICE about the same thing, and doesn't bother to get a name of who they spoke with? Were those calls actually made? It only took me one call to get a name and direct dial number for resolution. So in conclusion, if you are a seller in Fairfax County, Virginia, and your buyer suggests SMS Title, you should show this review to your listing agent and demand a different company. And if you are stuck with them, make sure you personally call your mortgage company and get all the numbers before subjecting yourself to the negligence of SMS Title. read more