Sharing a well

What kind of lawyer was this? A slip and fall guy? Any lawyer who advises not getting title insurance should be disbarred. It is really cheap and protects you if some person shows up with a deed saying they still own your property.

The only real risk to most people buying a property through a realtor and or using a lawyer here is title fraud - where someone steals your identity and fraudulently takes possession of or mortgages your property. Most title insurance has more holes in it than it has coverages.

True,. But the problem with the Walkerton fiasco was that the brothers did not do any testing and just made up the numbers while sipping their beer. They both should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter at least. But, they walked, and even got severance pay.

Your lawyer's and broker's errors and ommissions insurance protects you as much as title insurance except for identy fraud related title fraud - and there you are likely better off with identity insurance because it covers more than just real estate title fraud.

Hard to find any ground anywhere with even that little history behind it...not much free-claim ground around to develop any more.

It's not just the last transaction that matters, necessarily. Particularly in this day and age with all the environmental rules/laws that pass down inheritance to subsequent owners. Who know, Uncle Bob may have had a corner repair/service station on the place before he sold it. Or the corner lot of the new subdivision is the spot the farm operation used as the drain lot of oil changes for last 100 yrs.

I think you're simply wrong there but not going to argue further--you have the answer to everything.

I agree with you. It's not a lawyer or broker's error or omission if a year later a spouse of a former owner shows up and claims that her signature was forged on a deed transfer. Or some heir comes forth and claims that the estate was settled incorrectly and the property really was left to them.

"Fresh Deed" is a meaningless term. Title insurance is generally included in the deal for a title search. For most people, you would be a moron not to buy it. The deed is only as good as the lawyer who wrote it and does not assure there are not going to be other encumbrances on the property. The court house takes it at face value and stamps it. even if there is a problem. When I bid on the property next door I did my own title search but it is pretty easy because Lee County has EVERYTHING online. That is not true in most places. I could trace that property back to the indians Andrew Jackson stole it from. I saw the transfer from the feds to the crackers who had it for 100 years. As it turned out, I had everything the lawyer/title company (same guy) found when I paid him $150 for it. The difference was, if I did get the property, I would have had title insurance on it, up to the value of the property and buildings. This property did have plenty of encumbrances but they were all supposed to be cleared in the tax sale and I wanted to be sure that was really true before I bid.

The lawyer I hired was also a licensed title company. He specialized in distressed properties, foreclosures and tax sales. In my case, that was exactly what I needed. My SIL is a lawyer and he said I needed a guy in that line of work for a real answer. We both had the same conclusions I ended up paying for (just reading the statutes) but when you are talking about a 6 figure deal, a couple hundred buck for an expert opinion is chump change.

BTW in Florida, it turns out, a tax sale seems to cure anything but a Federal tax beef. If you make sure the IRS doesn't have a lien, virtually if not all of the rest simply disappear. That is not true in any other transaction tho. If you are just buying a foreclosure, it comes warts and all. Obviously a garden variety sale is fraught with danger if you don't examine the title, back as far as you can go.

OTOH as those people in Massachusetts found out in 2007, if some politically connected indian from a tribe nobody ever heard of, raises his hand, they can go back 400 years. It makes me wonder. if your family had some property in that tract, do you fight it or just stick a feather in your hat and become a casino millionaire?

Actually the biggest danger is an IRS lien. There is no remedy for that. Then the next worse is various state and local tax troubles but you can't underestimate you garden variety liens from loan companies or tradesmen. The property next to me that I wanted to buy was in hock for almost $170,000 and it sold for $103,000. ($3k more than I was willing to pay). Fortunately a tax sale wiped that all out. The 1st mortgage holder had $143k in it and had to take a $40k bath. They bought it in the tax sale by bidding what they were owed. The rest were stiffed. They got all of the proceeds (from themselves) minus the taxes due. Then they sold it on the open market.

There is usually a statute of limitations on claims like that but you need someone versed in your particular state law to tell you how that works and how long it can be. It is certainly the kind of thing you want to know about tho. How were all of the transfers done in the past and were there any irregularities. Our neighborhood was purchased and platted in 1956. There were only 2 transfers of that land in the proceeding 200 years prior to that after the federal government took it from the indians.

A foreclosure wipes out all debt that's subordinate, which could leave govt authorities, eg unpaid taxes, municipal utilities, income tax liens, etc still in place. But second mortgages, other debt, judgments, etc come off the property. If those parties want to protect their liens they have to be prepared to bid at the auction. Otherwise, if the property sells for less than the first mortgage, they get nothing.

I'm not familiar with that case, but sounds like a good example of why you should have title insurance.

And if you are the FIRST buyer of a lot in a subdivision there is nothing title insurance is going to protect you from.

And that is one of the things title insurance does NOT protect against

Things might be different in the fragmented states of america - but that's how it is here. And title insurance doesn't protect against chemical contamination here either. It's basically insurance against someone missing something that is documented, so that you don't find out about it. If a lawyer in Ontario doing a real estate deal overlooks something that materially affects the purchacer it is covered under his errors an omissions insurance.

If you are buying property without a lawyer, by all means protect yourself to whatever extent you can - but don't expect title insurance to protect you from willful blindness or stupidity.

That's all the stuff the lawyer takes care of up here.

There is a farm on Long Island that has been in the same family since

It was a moot point since the 1st mortgage holder bid about 140% of the value of the property. Nobody else was going to touch that, including me.

It was beat up here this week but whatever. I suspect the indians gave all of the property holders an offer they couldn't refuse. Tribal membership and a taste of the casino profits.

Do you mean plat?

The deed refers to the plot by its designation on the plat, and that's all it has. The lawyer made no comments.

BTW, the previous owner had a survey done before he put in a fence, but I can't find any of the ??pins??plugs?? the serveyor might have put in. Even with a metal detector. However that was only needed when I was anticipating a fight with a next door neighbor. He was a fireman who worked when I met him but was home all time on disability not long after that. Even though he looked and seemed fine**. He once objected to my trimming the bushes on part of my land, an unusually shaped part, because he thought it was community land, and I worried he'd cause trouble. **But a couple years later he started carrying and oxygen generator and a few years after that he suddenly died, at age 65. So he clearly wasn't faking, even though he seemed healthy. His grandson was over at breakfast time, sitting at the teble, and the gf coughed or something and died right in front of him.

His grandson lives there now and he's much friendlier and I very much doubt he knows anything about what his grandfather thought that little piece of land. I tried to patch up whatever bothered the man about me but he woudln't say. I guessed and I apologized for what I guessed it was. He didnt' acknowledge that I was right, but it may have taken the edge off. I'll give him credit that I don't think he repeated his feelings to others.