The purpose of a title search is to confirm that the person selling a property actually has the legal right to sell it, and to uncover any debts, claims, or restrictions already attached to the land before you take ownership. Mortgage lenders require one before they’ll fund a loan, and cash buyers who skip it inherit whatever problems the public record would have revealed. Done properly, the search is the single best tool you have for avoiding expensive surprises after closing.
What a Title Search Is Looking For
Two things, really. First, that the chain of ownership running up to the current seller is unbroken and properly documented. Second, that nothing is attached to the property — liens, easements, restrictive covenants, judgments — that you’d be stuck with the moment the deed is in your name.
The ownership question matters because a seller whose name appears on the current deed may not hold title as cleanly as it looks. If a prior transfer was defective — a deed never properly signed, an heir left out of a probate proceeding, a signature missing from a spouse who had a legal interest — the seller’s ownership can be challenged. As the Legal Information Institute explains, if the seller lacks valid title, the buyer can end up with nothing while the person who actually holds legal ownership keeps the property.1Legal Information Institute. Chain of Title Gaps in the chain are more common than people expect. They can come from clerical errors, informal family transfers, missing probate proceedings, or deeds that were signed but never recorded.
The encumbrance question matters because these claims travel with the real estate, not with the person who created them. If the previous owner stopped paying a contractor and a mechanic’s lien was recorded, that lien doesn’t disappear at closing. It becomes yours. The same is true for unpaid property taxes, outstanding mortgage balances, and judgment liens against prior owners. Catching them before closing means the seller pays them off from the sale proceeds. Catching them afterward means you do.
Other items the search turns up aren’t debts but still shape what you can do with the property:
- Easements that give a utility company, a neighbor, or a municipality the right to use part of the land for a specific purpose
- Restrictive covenants that limit construction, rentals, or other uses
- Boundary descriptions that may or may not match what a current survey shows
Knowing these exist before you buy lets you decide whether you can live with them. Discovering them later gives you no such choice.
The Records That Get Pulled
A title professional — typically a title company, abstractor, or real estate attorney depending on local practice — reaches back decades through public records to assemble the full picture. A thorough search commonly covers 30 to 60 years, though the exact timeframe varies with local custom and how complicated the property’s history turns out to be.
The sources pulled include:
- Deed records showing every transfer of ownership
- Mortgage and lien records for outstanding loans and recorded debts
- Court records covering judgments, divorce decrees, bankruptcies, and pending suits involving current or past owners
- Tax records for unpaid property taxes and special assessments
- Probate records, including wills and estate proceedings that moved title between generations
- Plat maps and recorded surveys showing legal descriptions and easements
All of this gets compiled into a chronological chain of title. A title examiner — often an attorney — then reviews the report for legal problems that need to be cleared before closing.
What a Title Search Will Not Catch
This is worth knowing up front, because people sometimes assume a clean search means a bulletproof title. It doesn’t. The search only examines public records, and some of the most damaging defects never make it into those records.
Forgery is the classic example. If someone impersonated the true owner and forged a signature on a deed, the forged document sits in the public record looking perfectly legitimate. The same goes for a deed signed by someone who lacked legal capacity, like a minor or a person with severe cognitive impairment. A searcher reading the file has no way to detect the problem.
Other issues a standard search can miss:
- Unknown heirs of a deceased prior owner who weren’t included in probate and later surface with an ownership claim
- Unrecorded municipal charges for code violations, nuisance abatement, unpaid utilities, or special assessments that were never filed in the county land records, and that can accrue daily
- Recording errors by the county clerk, such as a deed filed under the wrong name or against the wrong parcel
- Boundary disputes where the recorded legal description doesn’t match what a new survey shows on the ground
- Missing spousal signatures on a transfer of marital property, which in many states can make the deed voidable
This is why title insurance exists alongside the search. The search eliminates risks the record reveals; an insurance policy covers the ones it can’t.
How Problems Get Fixed Before Closing
A problem turning up in the search doesn’t automatically kill the deal. Most defects have established fixes, and the complexity ranges from a quick paperwork correction to a full lawsuit.
Minor Errors
Typos in a name, an incorrect lot number, a missing notary acknowledgment — all common, all usually solved with a corrective deed. The original parties or their heirs sign a new instrument that fixes the error without changing the substance of the transfer, and the new document gets recorded in the same county.
Liens and Unpaid Debts
These are typically resolved by the seller at or before closing. The title company or closing attorney will require mortgage payoffs, tax liens, and judgment liens to be satisfied from the seller’s proceeds as a condition of issuing clear title. If a lien was already paid but never formally released in the records, the seller has to obtain the release document and record it.
Quiet Title Actions
Harder disputes — competing ownership claims, an uncooperative former owner who won’t sign a corrective deed, serious boundary conflicts — may require a quiet title action. This is a lawsuit asking a court to establish definitively who owns the property. If the plaintiff prevails, the court’s judgment eliminates all competing claims, and no further challenges can be brought on the same grounds.2Legal Information Institute. Quiet Title Action Quiet title actions cost time and money, so they’re a last resort, but sometimes they’re the only way to clear a title with deep problems.
Reading the Preliminary Title Report
Once the search is finished, you’ll typically receive a preliminary title report, sometimes called a prelim or title commitment depending on local terminology. It lays out current ownership, lists every recorded lien and encumbrance, and identifies the exceptions — items the title company will not cover if it issues an insurance policy.
Read the exceptions section carefully. That’s where problems hide in plain sight. An easement letting a neighbor drive across your future backyard, or a covenant prohibiting a home business, will be listed as excluded from coverage. If you don’t object during the escrow period, the title company has no obligation to cover those items later. The prelim is effectively telling you what it won’t insure against, and you have a window to push back or ask the seller to resolve issues before closing.
Why Cash Buyers Should Still Order One
No lender requires a search when you’re paying cash, but skipping it to save a few hundred dollars is one of the riskiest shortcuts in real estate. Without a search, you have no way of knowing whether the seller carries outstanding liens that will follow the property to you, whether a prior owner’s judgment creditor has a claim against the land, or whether the chain of title has gaps that could threaten your ownership outright.
Cash buyers also lose the partial safety net a lender’s title insurance policy provides, because without a lender there’s no lender’s policy. An owner’s title insurance policy is the only protection against a defect that surfaces months or years later. It’s a one-time premium paid at closing, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau notes you can shop for it separately from your mortgage lender, which can save money.3Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Is Owners Title Insurance
Cost and Timing
A title search for a residential property typically runs somewhere between $150 and $400, though simpler searches covering only the current owner can cost less. The price climbs with location, the complexity of the ownership history, and whether the search needs to be expedited. Commercial properties and land with fragmented ownership histories cost more than a standard single-family home.
Timing usually falls between a few days and two weeks. Clean residential histories move quickly; properties with decades of transfers, probate proceedings, or incomplete records take longer. Who pays — buyer or seller — varies by local custom and is often negotiable. Title service fees, including the search and lender’s title insurance premium, appear on page 2 of your Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure, so you can see exactly what’s being charged and by whom.4Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What Are Title Service Fees