Last week's closure of a Citrus Heights-based title company has left anxious Sacramento-area home buyers wondering when their escrow will close – and an unknown number of employees wondering where to find their next job.

Real estate agents, too, are concerned about delayed paydays as transactions they've been working on stalled.

Financial Title last week shut its 10 offices in Sacramento, Roseville, Elk Grove, Citrus Heights, Fair Oaks, Folsom and El Dorado Hills. The firm, a subsidiary of Mercury Companies of Colorado, also closed 47 other offices across the state, the latest casualties of California's continuing housing slump.

Citing the "economic downturn," Mercury also closed offices in Arizona and Texas.

Title companies verify a home's ownership history and insure buyers against unforeseen claims to the property afterward. They also handle details necessary to close escrow on the home.

California officials said Monday that employees of First American Title Co., based in Santa Ana, were processing Financial's files "with no apparent issues." First American, which underwrote title insurance for Financial, assumed its pending title transactions.

First American didn't respond to telephone calls Monday. But California Department of Insurance spokesman Darrel Ng said escrow delays should be short.

"They will be able to cut checks early this week," he said.

Many who have had their closings delayed hope that's true.

Sacramento real estate broker Bruce Slaton counted 14 scheduled closings among clients last week that are now in a holding pattern.

"It comes at a bad time. The end of the month is typically very busy," Slaton said. "There are a lot of displaced home buyers right now who are not happy."

Folsom real estate agent Rich Lynn said one of his clients was scheduled to close escrow the day the firm closed its doors.

Since then, he said, the escrow file for his buyer's Elk Grove home has moved from a Financial Title office in Sacramento to a First American office in Fair Oaks, then to another in Roseville.

"To their credit, they have added people to the phones to assure people such as myself that they are working on it," Lynn said.

He speculated there were hundreds of buyers whose deals were in temporary limbo – a situation that affects agents.

"We don't get paid, and that's the heartburn on my part," Lynn said. "Frankly, when somebody says they're going to close escrow I start to count on that in the form of a paycheck. And these days those have been few and far between."

Financial Title's closure also put an unknown number of its employees out of work. The title industry relies on relationships with real estate agents, and officials at other area title companies said they've already started talking with ex-Financial Title staffers with deep client lists.

"I think every title company and every title insurance company is evaluating the employees of Financial at this point," said Patricia Laffin, general counsel of Auburn-based Placer Title Co.

Placer hired about 50 employees of a related Financial Title firm, All Reverse Transactions, she said. It handles title issues for reverse mortgages.

"Locally, we've been able to give a big chunk of them a home," Laffin said.

Some buyers say they've been able to work through the delays that have occurred. Jennifer McDaniel, a state legislative employee, said Monday she still expects to close escrow this week on a home she's buying in Sacramento's Land Park.

The deal originally was scheduled to close last Thursday.

Luckily, she said, her apartment complex agreed to an extra week's stay. What "could have been disastrous," she said, "has gone a lot smoother than I would have expected."

Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his blog on real estate, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs.