Your Worst Nightmare: Title Company Closes After Lawyer Owner Absconds With Funds

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Millennium Title

It’s kind of your worst nightmare: you buy a house, and park your funds with a Title Company, who executes the transaction and writes you a title policy to guarantee ownership and title of your most expensive asset, your home. Piece of cake, right?

But in a rare case, Texas insurance regulators have taken over a North Texas title company amid allegations the owner disappeared with millions of dollars of consumer’s money.

Millennium Title, with offices in Southlake, Fort Worth, Friso, Plano, Allen and Dallas Uptown, was ordered shut by The Texas Department of Insurance. TDI said the company had less than $10,000 on hand to pay more than $100,000 in bills. The firm was a year old and based in Southlake.

According to KXAS-TV reports, employees were dismissed, and state caretakers are now trying to close property transactions.

But where is the money? Apparently, there are questions concerning the company founder, Nancy Carroll, who has vanished. KXAS found packing boxes at Carroll’s Keller home.

Carroll is accused in a lawsuit, filed Friday in Tarrant County District Court by John Herlihy, of disappearing with funds he had put in escrow to sell some property. The suit claims Carroll has “left the country, absconding with over $1 million of his proceeds.”

According to the Southlake Chamber of Commerce website, Millennium Title was founded in January 2015 by Nancy Carroll,

whose vision was to create a real estate and title services company that meets the needs of clients. At Millennium, we offer legal and title insurance services, combining cutting-edge technology and attentive customer service that gives our clients unparalleled business value

Nancy Carroll is the founder and president and a practicing attorney since 1998. She’s a graduate of Southern Methodist University with an LLM degree and a Masters in Tax Law. Prior to Millennium Title, Nancy founded and managed Carroll PC, a group of fee-attorney title offices, which closed an average of 150 residential and commercial transactions per month.

TDI, which regulates title companies in Texas, says consumers should not see a disruption in closing; funds in escrow up to $250,000 are insured by the state. Funds that exceed that would be covered once the company is liquidated.

The state set up this website for anyone in the middle of buying or selling property who has questions. Millennial’s website is still active.

As for Ms. Carroll, no one can find her: a neighbor said he noticed someone moving out of her upscale Keller home in the middle of the night last week, a couple days or two before the state takeover.

When Channel 5 went to the house, no one answered the door and stacks of moving boxes were visible in her driveway.

Candy Evans, founder and publisher of CandysDirt.com, is one of the nation’s leading real estate reporters.

2 Comments

  1. Richard on February 3, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    I bought my first home back in December and the seller chose Millenium. BIG mistake. From the get go I could tell something wasn’t right. They didn’t have closing numbers ready and I ended up wiring them $2000 more than was needed, with an assurance a refund check would be printed at closing. Repeated calls to office staff, and emails to Ms Carroll and the other owning partners would go unanswered. I finally got a reply when I threatened to go to the media (broadcast and social). It took them two weeks to get the refund and checks cut for realtors and the seller. I was shorted a few hundred dollars and I’m doubtful I’ll ever see it.
    I had a feeling something shady was going on, but this is huge. I hope they catch her soon and she gets what she deserves!!

  2. Frustrated on September 24, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    Do not think that the Millennium problems have gone away. All of the awful staff if now at Allegiance Title in Southlake, TX. My agent promised me that she would never do business with them. I would tell everyone to stay away. I can go describe what happened but it would be a waist of time.

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