BUYER PROTECTION CENTER · OHIO · TEXAS · GEORGIA
Audit Us Before You Wire a Dollar
Wholesale deals are safe when three mechanics hold: escrowed deposits, on-statement fees, and simultaneous recording. This page shows each mechanic, and hands you the audit checklist to run on us or on anyone.
FOLLOW YOUR MONEY
A Deal From Alert to Recorded Deed
Your capital is exposed exactly nowhere in this sequence. Watch the green badges.
1. Verify the Package
ARV comps, line-item repairs, the underlying contract. Run your own comps; walk it with your contractor.
$0 AT RISK2. Deposit to Escrow
Earnest money wires to the title company file, refundable inside the inspection period on written notice.
REFUNDABLE IN ESCROW3. Title Clears
The search surfaces every lien; each is scheduled for payoff at closing. Problems appear here, before your money goes hard.
STILL IN ESCROW4. Record and Insure
Funds disburse, the deed records in your name or LLC, the owner's title policy issues.
DEED + POLICY YOURSOUR FEE, IN WRITING, ON THE RECORD
The Assignment Fee Lives On the Statement, Or It Does Not Exist
The dominant wholesale scam is the off-statement fee: "wire us $5,000 today to lock the deal." The cure is procedural, not psychological: every dollar you pay in a real transaction appears on the settlement statement, disbursed by the title company, in a document all parties sign.
Texas made this explicit: Property Code 5.086 requires disclosure of equitable-interest assignments. Ohio and Georgia title practice papers assignments the same way. If a fee cannot survive being printed on the statement, it was never a fee.
Ask Us To Walk Through a Real Statement →KNOW THE DIFFERENCE IN 60 SECONDS
A Legitimate Wholesaler vs. A Scam In Progress
- ✓A named title company holding escrow, confirmable by your own phone call
- ✓The underlying purchase contract shown to you: signed, current, assignable
- ✓An inspection period with refund terms in the written agreement
- ✓ARV comps and a line-item repair scope you are invited to verify
- ✓The assignment fee as a line on the settlement statement
- ✓A recorded deed plus an owner's title policy at the end
- ✗"Wire the fee today to lock it in", any fee outside the closing statement
- ✗Earnest money payable to a person or an operating account
- ✗"The contract is confidential", you cannot see what you are buying
- ✗No inspection period, or "we can skip that for a better price"
- ✗ARV with no comps, repairs as one suspiciously round number
- ✗A fake second buyer breathing down your neck since the first email
THE 3-QUESTION AUDIT
Run This On Every Wholesaler, Including Us
Which title company holds escrow?
Get the name, call them independently, confirm the file and the relationship. A clean operator answers instantly; a scammer changes the subject.
Show me the underlying contract.
Signed, unexpired, assignable. An assignment of a dead or fictional contract assigns nothing, and this one look eliminates the possibility.
Inspection period and refunds, in writing?
The window, the notice method, and the refund mechanics, in the agreement itself. Verbal assurances are not terms.
Buyer Protection Questions, Answered Directly
In the licensed title company escrow account (Ohio, Texas) or the closing attorney trust account (Georgia), under the property file number. Never in our operating account. Call the escrow holder and confirm the file exists; a legitimate deal always survives that call.
Inside the inspection period, yes, on written notice, that is the period's entire purpose. After it expires the deposit goes hard, standard in all three states, and it still sits in escrow until closing where it credits toward your purchase.
As a disclosed line item on the settlement statement, paid at closing from escrowed funds. Any request for a fee outside closing, by wire, app or cash, is the signature of wholesale fraud. Texas Property Code 5.086 additionally requires disclosure of equitable-interest assignments.
You inspect the underlying purchase contract before committing: signed, unexpired, assignable. The title company verifies it independently when opening the file, because no title company can close on a contract that does not exist.
An owner's title insurance policy issued at closing covers the chain of title behind your deed: forgeries, missed liens, unknown heirs. The escrow holder's licensing, bonding and errors-and-omissions coverage protect the funds in transit.
Verify wire instructions by phone using a number you found independently, never one from an email thread. The FBI's IC3 reports hundreds of millions in attempted real-estate wire fraud annually, almost all through spoofed emails. One phone call defeats it.
Audit Us First. Buy Second.
Join the list, ask the three questions in your first reply, and check every answer independently. Buyers who verify hardest become the relationships this business runs on.