Abouts Us
We built Surety around what actually slows deals down.
Most title companies will tell you they’re thorough. We’d rather show you. Every file that crosses our desk gets treated like it’s the only one we’re working on that day because to the family closing on their first home, or the investor juggling five properties at once, it is the only one that matters.
Surety Title provides title insurance, escrow, and settlement services across Virginia and Maryland, in English and Spanish, with the same standard of care no matter which language we’re closing in.
The People Behind The Process
José L. Castillo
Chief Executive Officer
José didn't come up through title work he came up through lending. Before Surety, he was President & CEO of Precision Mortgage, LLC, and spent his career deep in FHA lending, credit, and banking. That matters more than it sounds: he's sat on the other side of the closing table thousands of times, watching exactly where deals get stuck. Surety exists because he got tired of watching good closings get delayed by things that should never have been a problem in the first place. He runs the company with a lender's discipline and a settlement partner's urgency because he knows what it's like to be waiting on the other end of that call.
Lonnie Essex
Chief Operating Officer
Lonnie keeps Surety running the way it’s supposed to run every day, not just on the good ones. He’s spent his career coaching leaders and building organizations around systems, not scrambling, as a fractional COO and the author of Things That Matter. His philosophy is simple: teams do their best work when they’re not putting out fires. At Surety, that shows up in something you can actually feel at closing that runs on process instead of luck, where nothing gets missed because someone was busy improvising.
What We Do
Title Insurance
Owner's and lender's title policies for residential and commercial deals across Virginia and Maryland. Behind every policy is a title search we don't rush because the diligence we put in now is what protects you long after everyone's left the closing table.
Title Search & Examination
A full chain-of-title review, done by people who know what to look for forged signatures, undisclosed heirs, recording errors, liens nobody flagged. We'd rather spend an extra hour finding a problem now than have it surface at your closing table.
Real Estate Settlement & Closing
Title search, document prep, lender balancing, settlement start to finish, in English or Spanish. We show up to every closing the way we'd want someone to show up for us: prepared, present, and not looking at the clock.
Refinance Settlement
Same standard, same attention to detail, applied to refinances including any new policy your lender requires.
Escrow Services
We hold your closing funds and earnest money the way a fiduciary should — carefully, and with zero shortcuts. Every single wire gets verified, every time. No exceptions, no "we've done this a thousand times so we'll skip it."
Commercial Real Estate Closings
More parties, tighter timelines, higher stakes. We built our commercial process for exactly that kind of complexity, where precision isn't a nice-to-have it's the whole job.
Bilingual Closings
We provide comprehensive bilingual support across the board. Every service above is delivered fully in Spanish when needed. This is not just an accommodation bolted onto an English-first process — it is the exact same premium standard, built to work flawlessly in either language from the start.
Clients Feedback
Surety Title made a complicated closing feel simple. Their team stayed responsive, organized, and calm from beginning to end.
We always knew what came next. The communication was clear, timely, and incredibly reassuring.
They helped keep our deal moving and handled every detail with professionalism and care.
My clients felt supported throughout the process, and that made a real difference at closing.
The coordination between all parties was excellent and helped us avoid unnecessary delays.
They brought confidence to a transaction with many moving parts and tight deadlines.