If you work with a Title company, you typically have to pay for title insurance. What does this exactly buy me? If its just title history, I can do that myself at the court house. And for much cheaper than a title company will charge me.
The reason I ask this, is that with one of my deals, a title issue has come up. The problem being that I signed one Warranty Deed with my middle initial, the other without. I specifically remember asking my Title agent at closing whether it was Ok to sign without my middle initial. He gave me a nod and waved his hand, which I interpreted as “Its Ok”. The county recorder is making a fuss about the middle initial issue. Did my Title agent misguide me? Can I go back to him and sue? I paid for him to make sure that my title paperwork was good. That’s what I was under the impression that title insurance covered. Thanks all.
The owner’s title insurance policy assures a purchaser that the title to the property is vested in that purchaser and that it is free from all defects, liens and encumbrances except those which are listed as exceptions in the policy or are excluded from the scope of the policy’s coverage. It also covers losses and damages suffered if the title is unmarketable. That’s what title insurance is, I don’t think that it has anything to do with you signing your middle initial, or not signing, as the case may be. I’m not sure what your exact recourse would be in this case, hopefully someone else can answer that…
“re-execute the deed”? I’m not familiar with this term. Can you explain in some more detail?
Currently, I’m thinking that I can just record another Warranty Deed from my name with the initial as Grantor to my name without the initial as Grantee. Would that work?
Thanks.
Ok, so here’s what I did:
Another Warranty Deed. This one had me, with my middle initial, as the Grantor to myself without my middle initial as the Grantee. I followed up with the Country Recorder, and she said that this should clear up the chain of Title. I cross referenced with my State laws, and it says mostly the effect should be the same: http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE57/htm/57_01_001000.htm
So you are going to deed the property from yourself to yourself after you have already deeded it to someone else? Sounds like it would create more problems than you solve.
Here in SC, we have something we can do called a corrective deed. If there was an error, a corrective deed is executed to correct the previous deed. The deed is recorded with appropriate cross references.
If you signed the deed for the property you sold using a signature that matches how you are named on the title, what is the problem? I don’t understand, two deeds. Why are you giving two warranty deeds on the same property?
I hear ya, Dave, and this whole thing does seem quite trivial. However, the people at the County Recorder’s office stated that they have no way to verify that a name signed with a middle initial is the same person without that middle initial. I dug around my County Recorder’s office for examples of a Warranty Deed Correction, and there were a few, but they mostly had to do with the property description issues. I eventually did find one like my issue where the guy did do a Warranty Deed Correction from his name with his initial to his name without.
I guess I didn’t explain my situation that well. What happened, was I took title to the property by signing with my middle initial. Then I sold/conveyed title without my middle initial. This threw a “Grantor Not Vested” issue with the Recorder’s office. Thus, I did a Warranty Deed from the with-initial-name to the without-initial-name which the County Recorder told me should create a clear chain of title transfer/conveyance.
What really pisses me off the most is that my title company person “told” me that things should be fine regardless of how I signed. :gored All of this issue stems back from one of my short-sale deals that went “sour”: http://www.reiclub.com/forums/index.php/topic,38384.0.html The Title company I used is buddy-buddy with that funder, so I’m suspicious that the title company might have tripped me up on purpose as a means to “blackmail” me? None of this has any evidence except for that “go with your gut feeling” that many real-estate investors advise.