Title, searches and the paperwork behind a sale

Ownership of land is a history rather than a fact, which is why somebody has to read it.

A deed does not contain ownership; it records a transfer. What a buyer acquires is the end of a sequence of such transfers, together with every burden anyone attached to the land along the way. The search is the process of reading that sequence and listing what came with it.

The chain of title

Land records are kept by the town, and a search walks backwards through them: this deed from that owner, who took it from an earlier one, and so on for whatever period practice requires. The searcher is looking for breaks: a transfer by someone who did not clearly hold the interest, an estate that passed without proper administration, a description that does not close, a boundary described by a stone wall that has since been rebuilt in a different place.

Easements: rights that belong to somebody else

An easement is a recorded right for another party to use part of the land for a stated purpose: a utility line, a shared driveway, drainage, access to a landlocked parcel behind. It runs with the land, so it survives every sale, and it is not removed by the fact that nobody has exercised it recently. Reading where the easement physically lies is one of the reasons a survey and a title search are best done together.

Restrictions and covenants

Deed restrictions are private limitations written by an earlier owner or a subdivision: limits on further division, on outbuildings, on the use of the land, or on a farm or forest designation. They are separate from zoning and can be stricter than it. Both apply, and neither cancels the other.

Liens and the reason closing looks the way it does

A lien is a claim against the property securing a debt: the existing mortgage, unpaid taxes, a contractor's claim for work done, a judgment. Liens are why a closing is a carefully sequenced event. Money arrives, the claims are paid and released in order, and only then is the deed delivered and recorded, so that what is conveyed is clear of them.

What title insurance is actually for

A search reduces risk; it cannot eliminate it, because some defects are not discoverable in the records at all: a forged signature decades back, an heir nobody knew of, a mis-indexed document. Title insurance covers that residual class of problems. The lender's policy protects the lender's interest, and an owner's policy is a separate thing covering the owner's. Whether either applies to a given situation depends entirely on the policy's own terms.