I want to learn the process of doing a title search. Paying $150 per search is not an otion unless I have a good prospect. I have searched the archives for related posts and none seem to help. I do not want to take a class, I do not want to spend a bunch of money learning, I would buy a book or spend a small sum to learn.
Any links or outlines to get me started would be much appreciated.
I am in Pittsburgh, Pa - Allegheny County
Let me know what you find out.
I would like to learn how to do it myself!
I thought title searching, aka title abstracting, was as easy as going to the county courthouse and searching for records/filings on the property address, the current & previous owners. No, there is more to it than that.
I did some test abstract research on some county tax sale properties … and wow … I found I missed quite a bit by just looking at the courthouse records. A friend of mine told me that is all I had to do … but he was wrong. In Texas there is abstract work done by the law firm conducting the tax sale, and it’s usually available at the county clerks’s office, and when I compared what I found to what the law firm (in this case it was Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP) found … I probably only got 1/2 of what they had! And I did my “test abstracting” on several properties!
I imagine professional abstracters pull credit reports, search county / state / federal court records, if not more things too. It’s bound to be very thorough & concise, considering the company they work for (the title company) usually provides title insurance based on their results.
CEO I agree the process has to be involved but there has to be a way to figure it out. I found a place to do it for less than $150 with 24 hour turn around. So unless it involves database subscriptions that are costly I’ll get it done. I just want to get a handle on if a property is bound up and how bad. Before I move ahead and pay the money. If I can do 10-15 pre searches I can eliminate the stinkers. Just starting out i have more time than money plus my wife can help. It will be nice when the search money is just a cost of doing business, right now it is an obstacle to overcome.
You know, I would make your offers regardless of what sort of liens are on the property, assuming you are buying standard properties. Lots of the time, desperate sellers, have liens and/or debts on the property because they are broke. And those are the best sellers. I bet 1/2 of the properties I’ve bought had non-mortgage liens on them!
I make all my offers based on what will give me a good financial return, and I stick to that, and I don’t even bother checking liens. If a person says no, I move on. If they say yes, we close the deal at the title company and they pay off any liens/debts (property taxes for example) associated with the property, and then give the seller a check for what’s leftover. I use a standard TREC contract which has that specified in it. So if it was a $50k property and they had $40k in debt, the seller might get a check for $9k after his share of the closing costs (assuming they’re $1k). Cool, eh? Amazingly the seller is usually happy with that - as they know they were retarded enough to run up $40k in liens on their properties.
It’s always good to use a title co, just for the title insurance alone, more or less for the “included” abstract work.
However I would still like to know how to do abstract work, as I can see myself using it to double-check what is for sale at the county tax / property tax sales…to my understanding you can’t get title insurance for those deals, so I would like to know how to verify everything myself. And also if I ever owner finance a property, it’s always smart to check on your property for liens/debts. I know a of someone who owner financed a really nice property and it wound up having more non-removable junior liens attached to it than what the house was worth (two property tax liens and one huge IRS lien equaled 110-120% of what the house could sell for) … the lienholder / investor literally had to pay out of pocket to sell his own house after he foreclosed on his buyer!!!
I am most interested in Sheriff sales here in my county. It’s no benefit for me to buy a house and have to clear up debt on a good deal. I too just want to know.
Who’s going to insure the search?? I would go with a title company. It’s too risky. Maybe you can work as a searcher for a title company for a year or two and then you’ll know enough, but going in green isn’t worth it.