The purchase of residential property usually involves purchasing 2 separate policies of title insurance. One is for the buyer and the other is for the seller. The seller is the insured party and the buyer is the interested party. The seller usually provides and pays for both. This helps to ensure the buyer that the property does indeed belong to the seller and that it has no unexpected liens or problems. It is also a requirement of many lenders that the buyer purchase title insurance on the lender’s behalf for the loan and sometimes the entire sale price.

Title insurance is also a onetime investment. The policy will stay in force until you sell or refinance the property. The premium is usually based on the amount of risk assumed by the insurer. The real estate networking group for women that your agent is a part of will keep her informed about these policies.

When you are purchasing property, it can be put at risk in a variety of ways. If it does not have a clear title, this may be because documents could have been executed several years ago that did not surface until much later. This is why you need to have title insurance.

Here are 7 items that can put your property risk:

1. Forged deeds, mortgages, satisfactions or releases
2. Deed by person who is insane or mentally incompetent
3. Deed by someone who is under age
4. Deed from a corporation, unauthorized under corporate bylaw
5. Deed by partnership, unauthorized under partnership agreement
6. Deed given under fraud or duress
7. Deed executed under falsified power of attorney

Here are 7 things to watch out for:

Read your preliminary title report and if necessary, take action if any of the items below appear on that report. If they do appear, contact your title company immediately. If you do not , act fast you may cause a delay in the closing of escrow or even decrease your profits.

1. Tax Liens
2. Mechanics Liens
3. Notice of Action or Judgments (may include back child support)
4. Bankruptcies
5. Uninsured Deeds
6. Legal Access to and from the subject property
7. Typos in the legal description and/or parties’ names

Women in real estate can benefit from having a relationship with a title representative whose sole purpose is to sell title policies on behalf of a title insurance company. You should find out what that representative is willing to do to earn your business. Ask the following questions:

• Are they willing to give you access to their public record database?
• Can you request and receive copies of recorded documents?
• Are they willing to create property profiles for hot deals?
• Are they willing to set up a farm or territory to help generate leads?

A good title insurance company can help you conduct business efficiently. Every agent must know the complexities and specifics of title insurance as well as the benefits that it gives.

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Tags: networking for women, real estate networking group for women, real estate women, women in real estate

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 2:36 am and is filed under Agents, Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.