Is Title Insurance really necessary?
In my early days as a Realtor, I check out several stories of entire communities where almost no one got ttle insurance and then it happened, in one community only a Realtor bought Title Insurance while the rest of the folks fought the Mechanics Lein on their property, in another the Sally M Smith who sold the family farm was really the cousin of the Sally M Smith who owned the property and had spent several years traveling in Europe to arrive home only to find her FARM was now a subdivision. Long story short, she got her land back, and the purchasers, most of whom did not have Title Insurance got to pay off the mortgage.
Point, Always, Always buy Title Insurance, Cheapest insurance you will hopefully never need
Is title insurance necessary? OH YEA!
Being kind of a boring subject I will keep this on the short side.
I bought a cabin on the lake. "Do you want title insurance?" I was asked. Being the smart Real Estate Broker that I am, I said "No". I thought I would save the few hundred dollars.
I fixed up the cabin and sold it. The day of closing, I noticed that the house number was wrong. There was a new 911 address system in the works, so I thought there was an issue with the county. They were saying that I owned the Cabin next door.
So, closing was stopped. I went to the county and after talking with all entities involved in the taxation and recording of the property, I indeed owned the cabin next door.
Again the Long story short...The cabin I bought and the one next door were owned by the same person many years ago. Both cabins had been sold 3 times before and I was the 4th buyer as was the neighbor. Apparently the seller switched the abstracts unknowingly. 4 SALES and no one caught the mistake. Even the county had the photo's of the properties switched around.
It took a couple of weeks to straighten out. Had I had the title insurance we would have closed on time and I would not have had to worry about this.
This issue could have cost thousand of dollars and taken a year or two to complete. But, because myself and the neighbor cooperated together to resolve the issue fast.
I have purchased several properties since. "I PURCHASE TITLE INSURANCE EVERY TIME!!!"
****A footnote...After several comments, I found that I had ommitted this part. The neighbor who had bought the cabin next to me...his agent never suggested Title Ins.
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