Real Estate Title Searches

In real estate business and law, a title search or property title search is the process of retrieving documentation of events in the history of a piece of real property. We do this to determine relevant interests in a piece of property and regulations concerning that property.

In the case of a prospective purchase, a title search is performed primarily to answer three questions regarding a property on the market:

• Does the seller have a saleable interest in the property?
• What kind of restrictions or allowances pertain to the use of the land? These would include real covenants, easements and other servitudes.
• Do any liens exist on the property which need to be paid off at closing? These would be mortgages, back taxes, mechanic's liens, and other assessments.

A title search is also performed when an owner wishes to mortgage his property and the bank requires the owner to insure this transaction.