Title Search

What it is

A title search is how the title company confirms that the seller actually owns what they’re selling and nothing else is attached to the parcel. They pull the chain of deeds through the register of deeds, confirm the current seller has clean authority to transfer, and surface every lien, judgment, easement, encumbrance, or ownership dispute attached to the property.

Standard things it catches: unpaid property taxes, mechanic’s liens from contractors who weren’t paid, mortgages that were never released after payoff, IRS tax liens, child support judgments, HOA assessments, easements running across the parcel, boundary disputes, probate problems where an heir was never deeded out, and estate issues where the seller doesn’t have clean authority to sell.

If the search comes back clean, the title company issues title insurance at closing. If it finds problems, those get cleared before closing — or the deal dies.

Why it matters

“Never accept title that has exceptions. When you go to close on a house through a title company, what they’re really doing is they’re selling you title insurance, and they may want to put exceptions on it — that means that they’re not confident about what’s going on with that property. So only take the title if you can get full coverage.”

The surprises that show up in title searches can be significant. “I bought a house before that came with an extra lot and I figured what I would do is renovate the house and sell it, and then I’d sell that additional lot to a new builder. But it turns out that additional lot had a utilities easement all the way down the center of it. So they couldn’t build anything on it. What’s it worth right now knowing the easement is running through it? Salvage value.” Clean title means you know exactly what you’re buying. A title exception means you might be buying a problem you don’t understand yet.

Also relevant on the inspection side: “Sometimes you find houses that are sharing a sewer line with the house next door — this kind of thing happens on older houses usually. Do you think a buyer wants to buy a house that’s sharing those type of features?” The title search either catches encumbrances like that or the deal blows up at the closing table.

How it shows up

For direct-to-seller deals, the title search matters more than on MLS deals. On the MLS, the listing agent usually vetted the basics. Off-market, nobody did. Probate heirs, out-of-state owners, motivated sellers — these are exactly the leads where title surprises hide. Run the search early. I send every acquisition to the title company the day we sign.

From there I’m not involved. The title company does the work. They’re not on my team or the seller’s team — they’re on the deed’s team. If they find something, they tell both sides and either it gets cleared or it doesn’t. What I’m doing in the meantime is starting my scope of work, ordering the dumpster, calling contractors. If the title has a problem I’ll know before I’ve gone too far.

Related

title company, closing costs, due diligence, escrow, peeing on the tree