Is Title Insurence really neccessary?
A very important and also misunderstood issue for the consumers. Bill Shares this true story. I remember when this happened as he shared it with us during one of our meetings.
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!!!"
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