Why Title Insurance is an important key to protect your new home

For most middle-class Americans, their home is their largest investment.  It is certainly worth protecting. 

In today’s world, we are seeing more fraud than ever.  People are becoming very creative and we have some situations where the person listing a real property for sale may not even own the property.  People have discovered a vacant house or vacant land, researched the deed, and fraudulently produced documents claiming that they own the real estate in their name to list it for sale.   That is one of the reasons that obtaining title insurance at the time of your real estate closing is important.  False impersonation by someone purporting to be the owner of the property is rare, but over half of surveyed real estate professionals have at least encountered some type of scam attempt. 

Another area where there is a danger of having title issues is where the person selling the real property is elderly or the property that is being sold belonged to someone who is recently deceased.  Title insurance would be important in this area if deeds were executed by someone not mentally competent, or executed under an expired or false powers of attorney, or someone unduly influenced an elderly grantor to sign a deed.  We and other attorneys address such issues daily and even in estates, where real estate that belonged to someone recently deceased is sold, there can be surprises, such as a child or heir who pops up that was born after the execution of a will, for example.  There are a million different scenarios where the title to the real property must be examined and title insurance can protect your investment.

In other situations, the danger to your title may be more innocent such as simply an unsatisfied lien, unpaid real estate taxes, encroachments, clerical errors, incorrect indexing on land records, or mistakes and errors in a survey or legal description.  You do not want such errors to lead to you losing your home, so title insurance can pay the legal fees to defend your possession of your property, correct the problem if possible, or pay you for any loss from legitimate covered errors.

Title insurance, bought just once at the time of the real estate closing on the sale, is designed to offer protection for your property rights for as long as you own your home.    The policy is insuring title to your home to protect you from legal problems if your ownership comes into question now and for the years to come while you own your home.  It is well worth the investment ro protect your largest investment.

If you are buying real property and have any questions, or you have an elderly relative selling real property, or a family member has just past away, please call me - Kathy Brown van Zutphen of Coastwide Law, LLC.  228-357-5227.  I will be happy to help you with any of these areas, including real estate closings and Estates and Successions.