Proper Title, LLC, opens Naperville, Illinois, office

Proper Title, LLC, a full-service title insurance firm serving the commercial and residential real estate industry throughout the Chicagoland area, has announced the opening of a new office at 552 S. Washington Street, in Naperville, Illinois. The firm now offers a total of 10 closing locations across Chicago and its suburbs.

“The timing is great due to the summer surge of home sales as the typically busy spring season was postponed due to the pandemic,” said Kathy Kwak, executive vice president of operations and counsel for Proper Title. Quickly after shelter-in-place orders began, the firm expanded closing options to include curbside and remote service to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“I’m so proud of our staff that got creative and persevered through the initial stages of this pandemic to develop safe solutions to serving our clients and making closings happen with the same high standards Proper Title is known for,” said Kwak. “To open a new office on top of all the other challenges is another incredible accomplishment. Since we expanded into the western suburbs two years ago, we have been capturing more and more market share of the area’s title business. This new Naperville office is a perfect complement to our existing offices in Oak Brook and St. Charles, and is convenient for so many of our real estate attorneys, brokers and lenders.”

The new 1,100-square-foot Naperville office offers three closing rooms and curbside capability to accommodate its steady stream of residential and commercial closings. As the state’s fourth-largest city, Naperville continues growing in population, and this new Proper Title office is expected to complete a high volume of closings, according to Kwak.

In July, Proper Title hired two industry veterans to serve clients in the Naperville office: Richard (Dick) Bales as a senior underwriting consultant and counsel, and Kim Behrens as an escrow officer. Both new hires came to Proper Title after long tenures at Chicago Title Insurance Company, including 31 years for Bales and 20 years for Behrens.

In addition to his previous role as assistant regional counsel, Bales traveled the state as a guest lecturer on all aspects of title insurance and has written numerous articles for the Chicago Bar Association, the DuPage County Bar Association and the Illinois State Bar Association. Behrens most recently was an escrow closer in Chicago Title’s Aurora/Yorkville office.