by When you visit a tropical hideaway, playing and splashing on the beach is fun and exciting … but you feel safer knowing there’s a lifeguard on duty, watching out for you as you swim. Oasis Title is your lifeguard! Oasis’s title search services watch out for buyers during the exciting time of potentially purchasing property. Whether it’s alerting you to a dangerous riptide or giving you the all clear for a smooth day of splashing in the waves, Oasis Title helps you to start the home buying process on sure footing.
What is a title search?
When you hear about a title of a house or property, you may picture something like the title of a car. When you purchase a car or pay off your car loan from the bank, you receive the title of the car. This piece of paper may look a bit fancy or ornate. The title of the car has your name on it and proves that you are the owner of that car. If you decided to sell the car in the future, the title of the car would go to whoever you sold it to and would be under their name.
While property and homes also have titles, it is much more complicated than a simple piece of paper. In fact, the title of a home is an abstract term; there is no official piece of paper that follows the property, signifying who is the rightful owner. Instead, a title is the property’s full history, and it requires a lot of in-depth research into public records. This in-depth research into a property’s ownership history is also known as a title search. That’s one reason why title companies exist — to complete these title searches for interested buyers.
A title company will go into hundreds of documents through public records. The title is made up of any mortgages, liens, deeds, judgments, and more to give buyers the full ownership history of the home and its current ownership status. If there is an old lien, an unpaid property tax, or a judgment on the home, the title search will alert the potential buyers of this problem.
How does Oasis Title complete title searches?
Oasis Title uses these same methods to research each property’s title and full ownership history. We employ licensed title examiners to search public records as well as document and compile a history and current ownership status for each property we have in escrow. Once a full history and status is compiled, Oasis Title will present buyers with a Title Abstract, which goes over this history and current ownership status and alerts buyers to any possible issues that we may see with the title. If everything looks to be in order, Oasis Title and the buyers can move to open title insurance on the property at hand. You can read more about what title insurance is and how Oasis Title provides peace of mind with title insurance by following the links below.