Title Insurance 101
Title insurance is often times misunderstood and can be confusing at times. Different from homeowners, auto and life insurance—it guarantees you and your lender a free and clear title. A standard step in the home buying process, it also protects you from hazards and defects that may already exist in the title.

Protecting Your Home Investment
When you purchase a home—what you’re really purchasing is the title to the land and any structures attached to the land, which gives you the right to occupy the property, subject to any liens or easements set forth in the title commitment and title policy. When obtaining title insurance, Two Rivers Title begins by doing a thorough title search to rule out the following:

• Mistakes or fraud in prior deeds, or the failure to obtain a deed from all people who should have signed, such as heirs under a will, spouse, or through obtained under a recorded document.
• Lien/s against the property such as judgments against the seller or prior owners, unpaid mortgages, unpaid property or income taxes, or unpaid inheritance or estate taxes.
• Easements that would allow other people to use, occupy or take part of the property (such as utility lines or neighbors).
• Unresolved legal action against the property.

Through examination of the title, many problems can be found and quickly corrected. In some cases however, involving possible forgeries, fraud, missing heirs or recording mistakes, resolving these issues can be extensive and take substantial time and effort. In these cases, you want the problems solved before you close on your new home. In the event that these issues are not uncovered during an extensive title search and it results in a claim against you and the property, the title insurance policy would be your safeguard against a loss.

Relatively inexpensive, title insurance is only paid once and protects the owner for as long as they own the property—and in some cases longer.

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