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About Central Title

Closing of Phase 1 of Oak Forest Plaza (the Austin Bank Building). Fun fact: The female in the group is Pam Luker. Pam has over 40 years of title and escrow experience, more than 20 of those years spent at Central Title. Today, Pam is our Senior Commercial Escrow Officer in Longview, where her commercial expertise continues to play a part in shaping the landscape of Longview's business community.

Who We Are

Serving East Texans. Central Title is proud to handle all of your title and real estate closing needs in Gregg, Smith, Harrison, Upshur, and Rusk counties, at any of our six office locations: Longview, Tyler, Marshall, Gilmer, Hallsville, and Kilgore (fee office). 

 

Experience. With roots dating back to 1912, Central Title is East Texas’s premier title authority. In business for over 100 years, we operated first as an abstract company, providing abstracts to attorneys for title opinions, and now primarily as a title insurance agent for several major underwriters.

While maintaining our strong Gregg County roots, Central Title is expanding into other markets to continue our rich tradition of providing the very best professional title services in East Texas.

 

We are proud of the unique history of each of our locations and of Central Title’s unwaivering commitment to our clients over the past several decades that has allowed us to earn the respect and trust of the individuals and institutions we serve.

 

Expertise. Central Title owns and operates the only sovereign title plants in Gregg, Smith, Harrison, Upshur, and Rusk counties. These abstract plants include records from sovereignty of the soil – 1845. The early plants and unique information contained in them provide the best research available. Current information necessary to complete title research is indexed and updated daily to reflect the latest information filed in the real property records of the county.

 

Central Title’s services include title insurance policies, title research, commercial and residential real estate closings, escrow services, title searches and certificates, 50-year chain of title, environmental ownership searches, and numerous related tasks. 

 

Excellence. Known for our mission of providing the highest-quality product and customer service experience in the East Texas title & escrow industry, our team will not rest until your transaction is successfully completed. 

Mission & Values

When we say our clients are our top priority, we mean it! Everything we do is driven by our mission to deliver the highest-quality product and customer service experience in the East Texas title and escrow industry. And we believe that our team makes all the difference to our mission – their daily pursuit of excellence enables us to consistently exceed client expectations.

 

What does that mean for our customers? It means that when you choose to do business with Central Title, you are getting the best title resources in East Texas, along with a team of dedicated experts who will work relentlessly toward successful completion of your transaction.

 

Our 5 Central Title Priorities represent our commitment to you:

  • Knowledge: Continually educating ourselves, fostering the flexibility to adapt to the unique and changing needs of our customers
  • Accountability: Taking personal ownership of each transaction and identifying solutions, always working toward resolution
  • Communication: Being accessible, responsive, informative, and courteous
  • Accuracy: Paying attention to detail at every step to ensure successful transaction closure and complete customer satisfaction
  • Turnaround: Working efficiently, proactively anticipating and addressing potential issues throughout the abstracting, exam, commitment, and closing process

In order to deliver these priorities to our customers, we live by a set of Core Values that emphasize our clients’ needs, teamwork and accountability, personal excellence, continual improvement, honesty and integrity, and fairness.

We believe that cultivating a healthy and positive work environment ensures optimum customer service – and is just the right thing to do.

Thank you for your business – we are grateful for it and will continue to strive to earn it every day.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions – we are ready to assist!

The Central Title Team

Our Services

Central Title performs sales, refinance, and development work for all product types. In addition to residential transactions, we have extensive expertise in all major segments of the commercial real estate market, including office, industrial, retail, multi-family, and hotel.

 

Our broad service offerings have allowed us to serve a range of clients from local entrepreneurs to institutional investors, REITS, and major national pension funds. Over the years, we have provided title insurance and escrow services for both single-asset and portfolio transactions in all the major markets in Texas.

Today, our clientele includes customers from all over Texas, as well as national-level commercial clients for whom we handle single and multi-state transactions.

Underwriters

One of Central Title’s advantages, especially when working with commercial real estate customers, is our flexibility in underwriting.

 

With the largest selection among our competitors, we offer critical resources and options when closing a commercial project. Our vast resources in this area translate to the best price available for every transaction (no matter the location) and minimize the time necessary for underwriting and endorsement decisions, as well as conflict resolution — an incalculable value when closing complex commercial transactions.

Our underwriters include:

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Our
Locations

Click on any location below for directions, contact information & office history.

Longview
Tyler
Marshall
Gilmer
Hallsville
Kilgore

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Delivering the highest-quality product and customer service experience in the East Texas title and escrow industry.

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Longview Location

History

Central Abstract & Title Company was formed in 1931 by Paul B. Scott, Jas A. Hankerson, and EP Harding. Over its decades of operations, Central Title has passed through several owners, each group building the reputation for experience, expertise, and excellence that Central Title enjoys today, as well as expanding Central Title’s operations throughout East Texas.

 

Today, Central Title owns and operates the only sovereign title plants in Gregg, Smith, Harrison, Upshur, and Rusk counties and has 6 office locations: Longview, Tyler, Marshall, Gilmer, Hallsville, and Kilgore.

 

• Marshall: In 1999, Central Title purchased First Southwest Title in Marshall and then acquired Central Title’s second sovereignty title plant with the purchase of Professional Land Title Services in 2000
• Gilmer: Upshur County Abstract (established in 1912) was added to the Central Title family in 2002; in 2004, Central Title purchased Upshur County Index, adding a third sovereignty title plant to our resources
• Tyler: In 2008, Smith County Title (established in 1923) joined the Central Title family, along with another sovereignty title plant
• Hallsville: In 2013, Central Title opened a Hallsville location, offering an additional closing option for our customers
• Kilgore: In the 1990s, Central Title added another convenient closing location with a fee office in Kilgore

 

We are so grateful to our customers for over a century of business and look forward to continuing to grow and serve East Texas for the next 100 years.

Tyler Location

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History

The Tyler office of Central Title Company began as Smith County Abstract Company in April of 1923.

The sovereignty plant was built from its sister company, Boren Abstract, to supply the ever-increasing demand for abstracts of title on properties in the area of the East Texas Oil Field. The abstracts of title were typed on manual typewriters using onion skin paper. The typists for the three abstract companies lined the hallways of the courthouse for all the years of the oil boom and earned $0.05 per legal page, single-spaced, in triplicate with no errors.

Smith County Abstract began the issuance of title insurance some time in the early 1950s while most customers still preferred a good abstract of title combined with a title opinion from a trusted real estate attorney.

In Smith County, title insurance became more popular with the local lenders when they realized that a title policy took much less file storage room than bulky abstracts. By the early 1970s, title insurance was the more requested form of title evidence, although abstracts were still being used for the customers that had acquired them with their real property. Developers still requested abstracts for their new subdivisions, and oil companies were still used them for title evidence.

By the mid 1980s, abstracts had been replaced by the title insurance policy, which is the basis of our business today.
Smith County Abstract had its only office in downtown Tyler from 1923 until 1999. In the mid 1980s, Smith County Abstract Company was the first abstract company in town to set up a closing office. Formerly, all closings took place at an attorney’s office or with a lender.

In the late 1980s, Smith County Abstract became Smith County Title and built a new office in South Tyler, combining its title and closing operations. The company continued to grow as an integral part of the real estate business in Smith County.

In 2008, Smith County Title joined Central Title Company and became the Smith County branch of its five-county network, better able to supply the title needs of its customers.

Marshall Location

History

While the exact date of Harrison County Abstract Company’s founding is unknown, its earliest prepared file is dated March 20, 1920. Marshall Title Abstractor Chris DeWoody says, “We’re possibly a little bit older than that…All I can say for sure is we do not appear in the 1914 city directory, so were were established sometime between 1914 and 1920.”

 

Over the past 100 years, the company has operated out of several different buildings and under several different names:

• 1924: 107 1/2 W. Austin St.
• 1932: 1-2-3 Citizens State Bank building
• 1939: 4 Conway building
• 1946: the Mahon Building
• 1959: Harrison County Abstract Company purchased The Burton Abstract Company
• 1978: Harrison County Abstract Company was purchased by Lawyer’s Title Agency and moved to 301 E. Austin St.
• Operated under two names simultaneously for several years: Harrison County Abstract Company for abstracts of title and Lawyer’s Title Agency of Marshall for title insurance issuance
• 1984: Lawyer’s Title Agency was purchased by Royce Brown, renamed First Southwest Title, and moved to our present location of 200 W. Bowie St.

 

In 1999, First Southwest Title joined the Central Title family and became our Marshall branch.

Gilmer Location

  • 120 Davis St. Gilmer, TX 75644
  • (903) 843-2316

History

Upshur County Abstract (established in 1912) was added to the Central Title family in 2002; in 2004, Central Title purchased Upshur County Index, adding a third sovereignty title plant to our resources

Hallsville Location

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History

Open since 2013, our expert closing team in Hallsville offers an additional closing location option for our customers.

Kilgore Location - Fee Office

History

In the 1990s, Central Title added another convenient closing location with a fee office in Kilgore.

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RESOURCES

Our team is proud of the knowledge and expertise we provide for our customers. If you have a question that isn’t addressed here, please contact us – we will find the answer for you!

Disclaimer: The resources contained on the Central Title Company website are intended for informational purposes only and are not intended to offer advice (legal, financial, or otherwise) about specific situations or issues. Final numbers may vary based on credit, endorsements, and other factors specific to individual files. For assistance, please contact us.

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