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Title Search
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Additional Services
Part of getting settled in your new home is obtaining important documents that will protect you, your loved ones, and your new home when unexpected events may occur. Cumberland Title has ability to provide:
• wills
• general powers of attorney
• advanced health care directives
A will is a legal document that names one or more persons (a personal representative) to manage your estate and provides for the transfer of your property at death. The power of attorney document allows a person to sign for you or act upon your behalf.
Finally, an advanced health care directive, also known as a living will, are a set of instructions given by you specifying what actions should be taken in the event that you are no longer able to make decisions due to illness or incapacity, and appoints a person to make such decisions on your behalf.
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A title search is a means of determining that the person who is selling the property has the right to sell it, and that the buyer is getting all the rights to the property (title) that he/she is paying for.
In most real estate transactions a title insurance policy is purchased to assure the buyer that he has purchased a valid title. The title company (or agent) determines the insurability of the title as part of the search process. This leads to the issuance of a title policy which insures the existence or non-existence of rights to the property.
The title insurance company will, at its own expense, defend the title and will pay losses within the coverage of the policy if they occur.
It is extremely important to be sure that a title is not subject to judgments or liens against the seller or previous owners. Title insurance provides this protection. A judgment against a person named Smith may affect the title of a seller named Smith, depending on whether or not they are the same person. So all possible variations of the name must be examined (for example, “Smith” might be spelled Schmidt, Schmidtt, Schmied, Smyhte, etc.)
Commitment
When these searches have been completed, we will issue a commitment to insure the title, stating the conditions under which we insure the title. The buyer, the seller and the mortgage company can proceed with the closing of the transaction after clearing up any defects in the title which may have been uncovered by the search and examination.
The mortgage lender is as concerned as the buyer about the quality of the title because the property is to be security for the new mortgage loan. The mortgage lender required assurance that it has a valid first lien (or another acceptable priority) mortgage lien on the property. This is generally a legal requirement of regulated mortgage lenders.
The lender’s title insurance, however, doesn’t protect the new buyer of the property. Although the land is the same, the interest of the buyer and the interest of the lender are very different. The provisions of a lender’s title insurance policy are very different from those of a buyer’s policy, so the buyer should obtain his own policy, often issued simultaneously with the lender’s policy.
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