What is Title Insurance?

Protect your investment!  Whether it is your first new home, a relocation, commercial or industrial transaction.

Title Insurance protects purchasers of real estate or lenders making a loan for real estate, against financial loss due to outstanding issues against a property.

What is Title Insurance?

Unlike other forms of insurance, the title insurance premium is a one-time payment and the owner's policy remains in effect as long as the original buyer, or their heirs own the property.

Just as you shop for a home, we urge everyone to shop around before selecting a title company.  Often buyers and borrowers rely on the real estate agent or mortgage lender to make a recommendation and even selections on their behalf without knowing all of their options.  It is important to know that the buyer or borrower has the right to shop for title insurance and to choose their own title company.

An Owner's Title Insurance policy protects your financial investment!  

With a title insurance policy, you as the owner, have an indemnity contract that will reimburse you for loss in the event someone asserts a claim against your property.

Although a title search is conducted, there is still a possibility of title defects, errors, fraud in the chain of title and a whole host of other issues that could affect title to your property.

Should one of these unforeseen events occur, your title insurance policy will protect title to your property by bearing the cost of defending it, settling the matter or paying the insured for the loss that they have incurred. 

In Pennsylvania, the law does not impose a mandate on a buyer to purchase owner's title insurance. However, if a buyer is getting a mortgage, almost all lenders will require a loan policy.  A loan policy is issued solely for the benefit of the lender and does not protect the buyer. 

If a buyer opts not to purchase title insurance, they forfeit protection against possible title defects. 

• A deed or mortgage in the chain of title could be a forgery.
• A missing heir could appear and demand the property or a share of it.
• A deed or mortgage could have been made by a person who is mentally incompetent. 
• A deed or mortgage may have been made by a person other than the owner who has a like and similar name , but is not him.
• A deed or mortgage could have been signed by a minor.
• A deed or mortgage may have been made using an invalid power or attorney.
• A deed or mortgage may be voidable if it was signed while the grantor was in bankruptcy. 
• Unlike other insurance, you only pay for your title insurance one time and is good as long as you or your heirs own the property.
• Claims on title have risen drastically over the years.
• Title insurance covers your attorney fees and court costs.
• A prior owner failed to disclose that the subject premises was used as a collateral for an unpaid loan.

A title search is a search of the public records for recorded instruments which affect title to a specific piece of land.  

Title defects such as deeds, wills or trusts which contain inaccurate information; mortgages recorded against the property; judgments affecting property owners or intended buyers; liens; encumbrances and easements are all researched and reported in either a preliminary title report or an uninsured property search report. 

A search does not guarantee perfection.  A careful review of the public records is completed, but even the most thorough search cannot assure that no defects or title hazards are present.  Title Insurance protects against loss resulting from those potential defects and hazards as stipulated in the policy.

The basic owner's title insurance policy offers protection against loss from an error or omission that occurred in the past  through the date of the closing.  

They include:  Fraud; confusion from similarity or names; title vested in someone other than the seller; defects, liens or encumbrances not properly disclosed (missed) on the title search; errors in recording legal documents; unpaid taxes; forged documents; wills not probated; misrepresentation of marital status; signatures of minors or mentally incompetent persons and undisclosed or missing heirs. 

All the same protection as the Basic Policy plus additional title protections, including:

Automatic Policy Liability Increases

Building Permit Violation

Post Policy Forgery

Enhanced Access

Post Policy Encroachment

Subdivision Coverage

Street Address Coverage

Zoning Coverage

Call our office for details.