Owner’s Title Insurance Minimizes Your Risk
Real estate is one of the most important investments you will ever make. If you fail to purchase owner’s title insurance, your investment – and often your life savings – may be at tremendous risk. The small amount of money you pay for title insurance coverage insures your real estate investment against losses you suffer due to fraud, recording and indexing errors, including human errors, and undisclosed encroachments/liens, just to name a few .
A Lender title Policy does NOT protect the you, the borrower. The Lender’s Title Policy protects only the lender against any loss the Lender suffers due to title defects. Purchasing an Owner’s Title Policy at the same time your Lender normally requires you to purchase a Lender’s Title Policy is the best title insurance value you can obtain as a property owner, since generally the cost is only an additional $25.
A Title Search may not reveal everything. When we conduct a title search, as the title agent, we check on:
- Proper chain of title as shown in the public records
- Unpaid taxes, assessments and levies
- Existing judgments
- Existing mortgages.
What a title search may not show is:
- Fraud
- Deeds by persons who are married, but sell the property without their spouse’s knowledge
- Deeds by minors
- Deeds by persons of unsound mind
- Recorded documents executed under expired or invalid powers of attorney
- Deeds by individuals impersonating the property owner
- Easements to utility companies or neighbors
- Deeds, releases or wills which have been forged
- Missing or undisclosed heirs
- Recorded legal documents containing mistakes
- Wills which were misinterpreted
- Income tax liens or other unpaid liens.
Purchasing an owner’s title insurance policy protects you from losses you suffer from the above items which a title search may not show. Also, when our firm handles your closing transaction, we coordinate with all parties involved to handle the transaction. When the title search is completed and any title exceptions or issues are resolved, we can then complete your title closing, making sure the title is properly transferred, recording the legal documents necessary to complete the transfer, and issuing your title insurance policies.
Your one-time investment in paying the small premium for an owner’s title insurance policy provides:
- coverage for obligations under a warranty in your sale of the property
- payment for defense of lawsuit attacking the insured’s title by either paying your losses for same or resolving any title problems
- coverage as long as you, or your heirs, retain an interest in the property.
It is worth the investment.
