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How To Do Your Own Title Search (With or Without Title Insurance) - Training Tutorial - YouTube
Channel: REtipster
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hey everybody this is Seth from a land
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tipster calm how's it going and today
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I'm just going to show you a really
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quick overview of how to do a title
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search now before we get into this I
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just want to explain to everybody when
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you do your own title search you have to
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know a thing or two okay it's not I
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wouldn't really recommend this if this
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is the first land deal you're ever doing
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if this is just your first time dipping
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your toe in the water I would strongly
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suggest doing your first year second
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deal through a title company and getting
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an actual full-blown title insurance
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policy because as you're gonna see in a
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couple minutes does it go through this
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there's actually a lot of ins and outs
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and random things you have to know and
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yes I have to have a really good eye and
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kind of an analytical mind in order to
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successfully do your own title search
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and really know what to look for in spot
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problems and things that are gonna be an
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issue so the whole idea of a title
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search really the whole point of this is
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just you want to make sure that the
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person you're buying this property from
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actually owns the property there's
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nothing that we call a break in the
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chain of title and a break in the chain
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of title is when you know over the years
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and years and decades and centuries that
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a property changes hands from one owner
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to the next there has to be a very clear
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distinction you know person a sold it to
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person B person B sold the person C
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person C sold the person D not any skips
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or issues where you see the deed for
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person a to person B and then it skips a
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bunch of people and then all of a sudden
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you see this random person E
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selling to person F okay I mean you want
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to be able to clearly understand what is
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happening over the years as a property
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changes hands
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necessarily what a title search is in
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essence there's definitely other things
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that can come up other issues that can
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jump out at you if if you're looking for
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them things like finding mortgage
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mortgages that you didn't know were
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there or liens on the property but
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really just basic overview that's what
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you're trying to do so just to give you
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an example if you order your own title
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search from an abstract or a title
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company usually this is what you're
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gonna see and what they'll do is they'll
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scan in all of the relevant deeds and
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record
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documents that are you know either
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outstanding or anything like that over
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the past 40 years and you can tell them
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to go further back in time if you want
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but the typical typical approach is 40
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years and that's usually what you'll end
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up getting so this is this is just one
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of many properties I've bought over the
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years and when I ordered a title search
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for this this is what I got
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it was this basically just long PDF
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document back sections they were as long
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as only four pages but it's really just
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all of the deeds that changed hands over
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the past 40 years and the reason there's
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only four pages is because over the past
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40 years there weren't that many
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transfers it was a relatively simple
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deal but this right here is the oldest
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deed of record or not of record but
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within the past 40 years and as you can
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see it was sold from a Charleroi land
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company seen right there to American
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Central corporation all right so
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basically what happened here was this
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company here bought a ton of land in
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Michigan and they sold a huge chunk of
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it like dozens of parcels to this other
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company it actually kind of happens is
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fairly off and I've seen this it's a
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pretty common thing that happened back
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in the day as you can see here in the
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legal description of the property they
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just list all these different lot
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numbers and that basically means that
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they sold a lot of properties from one
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company to another so okay that's fine
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now if we're really looking closely if
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we knew exactly which lot number ours
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was we would find it in here and verify
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okay yes this particular lot was sold
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from this company to this company and
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that's why it's listed on here now going
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on to the next one
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this right here is when our particular
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property in question was sold from the
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big massive land company to these people
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here Thomas and Louis we're husband and
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wife and this happened back in 1973 as
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you can see right there good you know
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that's good to know
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you know as a matter of fact Thomas
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Weir's the person that we ended up
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buying this property from so right there
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you can track that you know American
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central corporation who was the buyer on
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the previous transaction they're now
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selling it
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to Thomas and Louis we're so good
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everything's still tracking now you go
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to the next most recent deed and you see
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that Thomas and Louis we're husband and
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wife are transferring the property in
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the name of their to the name of their
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trust so the Thomas II we're and Louis
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and weird trust that's okay
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that's so good because as long as Thomas
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II we're the sellers here are the same
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as the buyers in the previous deed we
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should be all set so and really this is
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what you would call the clear chain of
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title notice how as we went through here
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there were no mortgages that popped up
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there were no liens you know there were
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no you know outstanding tax forfeitures
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or anything like that it was just one
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deed after another and we were able to
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track you know from seller to buyer to
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seller to buyer so this is what you want
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to see and particularly whenever you get
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get a lead or a call or you know you're
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working with a seller who's trying to
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sell their property to you if you're
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doing your own title search this is what
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you want must make sure you're seeing is
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that the person you're talking to is the
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person that's actually listed on this
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deed and I can't tell you how many times
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I've run across issues where if Thomas
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had died and for whatever reason their
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son or daughter or heir of some sort
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picked up the tax bill and had this idea
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that they suddenly owned the property
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just because they started paying the
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taxes well it doesn't work that way it
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has to legally transfer from Thomas and
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Louis to whoever is going to own it next
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and there needs to be evidence of that
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in this title search so that's just
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definitely something you'll want to make
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sure of so in that instance for example
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what you would want to see is a copy of
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the death certificate of these two
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people and letters of authority the
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letters of authority grant basically
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another person the authority to sell
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this property on their behalf after they
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died so that's just one example I mean
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you can't just have somebody come up to
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you and say hey I want to sell you this
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property when they're not listed on the
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deed there has to be some kind of an
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explanation there and again this is the
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kind of thing if this is your first or
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second title search I don't expect you
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to know all this stuff I certainly
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didn't when I started doing this I
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really had to kind of figure it out
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myself and ask a lot
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questions so I mean me maybe one thing
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that you could do I mean get your own
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title insurance policy and ask them to
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walk you through the chain of title and
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explain to you why it's okay
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and they can do that for you too and
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they'll basically go through the chain
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of title just kind of like I did right
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here anyway if you ever do find issues
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that you can't answer and if it appears
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that there truly is a problem in those
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cases I know it's hard to say this but I
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would suggest you walk away from the
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deal because the last thing you want to
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do is end up with a property that you
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don't really own because the person you
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bought it from didn't really own it I
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mean that's just nobody wants that to
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happen it's it's just something you'll
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definitely want to watch out for and
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again that is why when I'm doing my own
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title search is the only reason I ever
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do them is when there's a property that
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is just really really cheap as you can
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see for example this property here back
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in well it's a little bit different
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because they're selling it to their
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trust but it actually happens frequently
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when I'm working with cheap properties
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where I'll see them sold for a hundred
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bucks or 300 bucks or really really low
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prices and those are the kind of
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properties when you can buy them for a
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hundred and sell them for say three
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thousand just kind of little rinky-dink
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things to make a couple grand here and
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there those are the kind of properties
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where you typically want to do your own
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title search and I only say that because
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the cost of a title search is usually
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somewhere in the neighborhood of a
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hundred bucks depending on who you go to
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and I mean the cost of a title insurance
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policy and to have a title company close
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on the deal I mean that could be another
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500 bucks and when you only have a
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profit margin of a thousand or two
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thousand dollars I totally understand
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the desire to keep those extra costs out
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of there and doing your own title search
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is one way to do that another way you
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could do this is to actually go to the
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the County Recorder's office or The
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Register of Deeds and actually ask to
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pull these documents up yourself and
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that is going to be the ultra cheap way
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to go however to do that you actually
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have to go down there and do it yourself
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and it takes time depending on the
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situation just kind of have to assess
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you know whether or not you're
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comfortable doing this on your own
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how much you're willing to pay or not
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pay I can tell you one thing for myself
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doing these title searches over the
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years it has really really helped to
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understand how title work works because
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I can really figure out when is there an
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issue why is it an issue it's just from
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my own knowledge it's just been a really
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beneficial thing to understand how to
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how to research a property's title
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there's definitely something to be said
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for that as well there's really a lot to
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be cover here and I realize this is a
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relatively short video considering how
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many things there are to know about a
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title search but if you if you do decide
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to tackle this on your own those are the
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basic things you're gonna want to look
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for and watch out for thanks for
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watching and good luck
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