Why a title company asks who the end buyer is before it will open a double close file

The one nobody says out loud: some Columbus title companies have cut wholesalers out and called the end buyer directly.

Have you just told her you'll provide end buyer info after both closings are confirmed on the same day?

@op that closer is fishing, full stop.

That "the deal is real" line is the tell. I have never once seen a title company need end buyer info to open a file on leg one, and what actually happens when you hand it over is exactly what you are afraid of. Your buyer gets a call, gets spooked by the double close structure, and either backs out or tries to renegotiate around you. Happened to a flipper I funded in Q3 last year, Cincinnati, he lost a 14k spread because the closer "just had a question" for the end buyer directly. There are a half dozen investor-friendly title companies in Columbus that will open both files on a signed A-to-B contract and transactional funding confirmation, nothing else. Pull the Ohio REIA circles for names and stop feeding this woman anything she did not earn.

Your transactional lender should already have a preferred title company who runs doubles all day without this conversation.

Columbus is small enough that closers talk, and she may already know your buyer.

Six months into this and I haven't closed anything yet so take this for what it's worth, but from everything I've read and the one dry run I did with a title company in Dayton, the ones who ask that question before the file is even open are usually not set up to run simultaneous closes at all. They're asking because they don't actually know how to handle the A-to-B and B-to-C funding sequence, and "who's your buyer" is their way of stalling while they figure out if they even want the headache. The company I talked to in Dayton flat out told me after twenty minutes that they'd never done transactional funding and didn't want to start. At least that was honest. Three times with the same company and the same answer sounds less like due diligence and more like they're just not your people.

What she is calling due diligence is really underwriting their own risk on the transactional funding rather than protecting you. Title companies running double closes need to know both legs will fund same day or back to back, because they are holding exposure in that gap even if it is ninety minutes. That is the real reason, and it is not nothing. There is a version of answering her that does not hand over your buyer's contact information. A proof of funds letter from your transactional lender showing capacity for the B to C leg, with no buyer name on it, should satisfy what she actually needs, and closers do accept that when they are honest about what they are worried about. The question worth settling is whether she is asking for the buyer's identity specifically or just for evidence that the second leg closes, because those are two completely different asks and you should not let her blur that line.