Title insurance is more often required by a lender to protect their interests against defects in title or fraud. Defects in title normally covered include an addition, deck or some other structure located over a boundary line or encroaching on an area protected by a statutory right of way or restrictive covenant. Protections against fraud include attempts by non-owners to transfer title to a third party without the owner’s knowledge. Lenders normally require either title insurance or a survey certificate confirming the building(s) location on the property. Often a survey certificate does not exist or the seller cannot make it available, so title insurance is the preferred option if a buyer does not have time to obtain a survey certificate. Cost of a lender title insurance policy is rarely over $200 and must be in place for the completion date. Our office obtains these policies when required by a lender and no survey certificate is available. Buyers can obtain a policy protecting them at the same time, and with relatively little additional cost – rarely over $100 on top of the lender policy amount.
Our office prefers to use Stewart Title, and we had the pleasure of having a representative of Stewart Title provide our office with a blog article outlining title insurance in more details. You can locate this article here:
