Wnenever I've closed on a mortgage I've had to buy title insurance for the lender and it was offered to me. I've always passed on it, but with all of the hijinks of banks in the bubble and the crash I don't think I could pass it up unless I was buying a house that hadn't been sold or mortgaged for the past twenty years.
Does anyone know that insurance premiums have gone up because titles are much less secure than before?
It doesn’t matter when the property was last sold, even a hundred years ago.
Defects in titles are more common in older titles because the property surveying techniques were only as good as the surveyor’s skill. They didn’t have GPS or lasers, only their surveyor’s scope and a flunky with a brightly colored stick................
Just a rabbit trail to the conversation:
Title companies took a huge hit in the foreclosure meltdown because in addition to title, they insured the loan package.
When a loan went belly up, the lender ran a flea comb through the entire file to find something to hang the insurer.
Erroneous appraisal data, falsified verifications, survey errors (there were a lot during the boom due to overworked, sloppy surveyors)
One question is did the homeowner build the garage after his property was insured? If so he’s SOL on the policy covering it.
I do not know about Ohio, but in Texas the premium for an Owner's Policy, in addition to the Lender's Policy, is an addition $100. Regardless of the amount of the Lender's Policy. If you borrow $5,000,000 when buying a house, you can insure your title for a 100 bucks.