WHAT IS TITLE INSURANCE AND WHY DO I NEED IT?

Title insurance gives you protection against potential claims on your property, including unpaid taxes, lien claims, mortgage or leaseholder rights, and lawsuits against the property itself. If any of these defects are found, you may not own your property at all!!!!!

There are two kinds of title insurance policies:

1. An owner’s title insurance policy protects a homeowner for as long as you     and your heirs own the subject property against potential defects in title.     Such defects cannot always be found with even the most thorough search     of the public records. In the event of a claim, you are protected up to the     purchase price of the property. Buying your policy at the time of closing can     result in a significant savings.

2. A mortgagee policy protects a lender against potential defects in title for as     long as their mortgage encumbers the subject property. It protects their     investment in the property and insures that their mortgage is a valid first     lien.

For a one-time premium, usually paid at closing, you are afforded protection for any number of things that happened at some time in the past, such as, but certainly not limited to the following:

1. Forgery
2. Improperly executed or recorded documents
3. Fraud
4. Undetected bankruptcies in other jurisdictions
5. Falsified or expired power of attorney
6. Improperly conveyed property by parties to an estate
7. Claim of lien
8. Unreleased mortgages or liens
9. Errors in tax records
10. Erroneous legal descriptions