To get a preliminary title report, contact a title company with the property address and the current owner’s name, or ask your real estate agent or escrow officer to order one for you. The search fee for a standard residential property runs about $75 to $250, and the finished report usually arrives within one to ten business days by email or through a secure online portal. You do not need an active sale to order one, and you have the right to choose the title company yourself.
What to Have Ready Before You Call
Title companies search by parcel and by name, so the more precisely you can identify both, the faster the order moves. At minimum, have the full street address. If you know the assessor’s parcel number, sometimes called a property index number or tax ID, share it. It removes any ambiguity between neighboring lots or similarly addressed properties.
The current owner’s name lets the examiner verify legal ownership and trace the chain of title backward. The property’s legal description, found on the recorded deed, helps with precise identification if you have access to it. For a pending transaction, share the names of the buyer and seller and whether the deal is a purchase, refinance, or transfer. That context lets the title company flag issues specific to your situation rather than producing a generic search.
Steps to Order the Report
Pick a title company first. Your agent may recommend one, but the choice is yours. Reach the company by phone, email, or an online order form and give them the property address, the owner’s name, and the transaction details. Most companies have web portals that walk you through what they need.
Once the order is accepted, a title examiner searches recorded documents at the county level: deeds, mortgages, tax records, court judgments, and recorded liens. The examiner pulls the ownership history, outstanding loans, unpaid property taxes, easements, deed restrictions, and anything else in the public record that could affect who owns the property or what you can do with it. When the search is complete, the report is sent to you, your agent, or your escrow officer, depending on who placed the order.
What It Costs and Who Pays
A standard residential title search and preliminary report generally costs between $75 and $250. Properties with complicated ownership histories or commercial parcels can push the figure to $500 or more. Older properties with many prior owners tend to sit at the higher end because the examiner has more records to trace.
Who writes the check depends on local custom. In many markets the seller pays for the owner’s title policy and the preliminary work behind it, while the buyer pays for the lender’s policy. Your purchase contract should state which party bears these costs, so check the language before assuming. If you’re ordering outside a transaction, you pay the fee directly to the title company.
How Long the Search Takes
For a straightforward residential property, expect the report within one to ten business days. Older properties, those with many prior owners, or commercial parcels may take several weeks because there is simply more to search. If your timeline is tight, ask the company for an estimate when you place the order rather than assuming the fast end of the range.
Ordering a Report Without an Active Sale
You do not need to be in escrow to request one. Sellers sometimes order a report before listing so they can identify and resolve problems in advance rather than scrambling once a buyer is under contract. Investors evaluating a potential purchase often pull reports before making an offer. The process is identical: contact a title company, provide the property details, and pay the search fee. The report gives you the same information about recorded liens, ownership history, and encumbrances that a buyer would receive during escrow.
Choosing Your Own Title Company
Federal law protects your right to shop for title services. Under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a seller cannot require you to buy title insurance from a particular company as a condition of the sale when you are financing with a federally related mortgage loan. A seller who violates this rule is liable to you for three times the amount charged for the title insurance.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 2608 Title Companies Liability of Seller
The same law bars kickbacks between real estate service providers. No title company, agent, lender, or other settlement service provider may pay or receive a fee for referring business to another provider. Violations carry penalties of up to $10,000 in fines and up to one year in prison, and the person who paid the inflated fee can sue for three times the amount of the settlement service charge.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 2607 Prohibition Against Kickbacks and Unearned Fees The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforces these rules and can investigate title companies whose pricing suggests referral fees or fee-splitting. A payment that bears no reasonable relationship to the market value of services actually provided can trigger an investigation.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Prohibition Against Kickbacks and Unearned Fees
If your agent is pushing you hard toward a specific title company and won’t explain why, that pressure alone is worth questioning. Get quotes from competing companies and compare.
Reading the Report When It Arrives
Preliminary reports follow a fairly standard format, though the exact layout varies by title company. The first section identifies the property by legal description and street address, names the current owner of record, and states the type of estate, such as fee simple or leasehold. Confirm that the legal description matches your understanding of the property boundaries and that the owner listed is the person you are dealing with. A misspelled name or a stale ownership record needs correction before anything else moves forward.
The second section is where problems live. It lists every recorded item the title company found that would be excluded from a future insurance policy. Typical exceptions include:
- Unpaid or delinquent property tax liens.
- Existing mortgages and deeds of trust secured by the property.
- Court judgments against the owner that have attached to the property.
- Federal or state tax liens recorded against the owner.
- Easements giving others the right to use a portion of the land, such as utility access.
- CC&Rs and deed restrictions imposed by a developer or homeowners association.
- Mechanics’ liens filed by contractors or suppliers who were not paid.
- Pending lawsuits recorded as notices against the property.
Some exceptions are routine. Property taxes always appear, and standard utility easements rarely cause trouble. Others, like an unresolved judgment lien or a mechanics’ lien from a prior owner’s renovation, need immediate attention.
One boundary worth knowing: the preliminary report is informational only. It tells you what the title company found, but the company has no contractual liability if the report misses something. That protection comes later, from the title insurance policy issued at closing.
Acting Before the Objection Deadline
Your purchase contract almost certainly includes a deadline for raising title objections, and missing it can waive your right to complain about problems you later discover. These deadlines typically fall between 5 and 15 days after you receive the report, depending on the form contract used in your area. Some contracts give as few as five days for vacant land.
If something on the report concerns you, submit a written objection to the seller before the deadline. The seller then has a window to cure the defect. If the seller cannot or will not fix it, most contracts let you terminate and recover your earnest money. Let the deadline pass without objecting, and you may be treated as having accepted the title as-is. Read the report the day you receive it.