Cost to Transfer Title

[Dennis]

Yes, a Title Insurance policy does cover unrecorded items. Items that would be covered would be i.e. "Hand Shake" agreement, missing heirs, forgeries etc. An example of an unrecorded claim could be: Say a grandson went to visit his/her grandma at a nursing home and had her sign s deed over to them for their property and this deed was never recorded. Several years later this deed comes out and someone makes a claim against you. Title Insurance would protect the new owner from this claim. A Title Guarantee differs from Title Insurance because it JUST covers recorded items. An Attornies Opinion or Abstract of Title offers no coverage and in my opinion worthless. Since you could purchase a piece of land without a Title Insurance policy, think you are O.K. then build your home and out of nowhere someone comes forward and makes a claim. Without Title Insurance to defend your ownership you could lose big time.

Here is an actual example that I was involved with in Ohio. A customer purchased a home, purchased Title Insurance and wanted to build a garage. When they surveyed, they found that 7 feet of his home was built on township property. (The surveyor made a mistake and did not catch this when the property transferred) Had he had an attorney's opinion or a title guarantee, he would have been in big trouble. Since he had Title Insurance, the insuring company acquired the land from the township and made everything right at no expense.

Is it rare that this type of thing happens? Yes it is. But if it happens to you, why would someone want to take a chance on one of the most expensive assets that they will ever have?