What Are the Risks?

There are many title troubles that can arise to cause the loss of your property or mortgage investment.  Hidden risks, that is title troubles which are not disclosed, even by the most careful search of public records, are the most dangerous.  Hidden risks can make your title worthless.  Your attorney's examination may be the finest that skill, experience and legal knowledge can produce, but your title may be fatally defective.

Here are some title troubles that frequently occur.  You may not discover them when you buy real estate, but months or years later, they can result in an expensive lawsuit or even the loss of your property.

• Deeds by persons of unsound mind
• Deeds to or from defunct corporations
• Defective acknowledgments
• Duress in execution of instruments
• Erroneous reports furnished by tax officials
• False impersonation of the true owner of land
• Forged documents, i.e., deeds releases, etc.
• Misrepresentation of wills
• Mistakes in recording legal documents
• Surviving children omitted from a will
• Errors in indexing
• Capacity of foreign fiduciaries
• Birth or adoption of children after date of will
• Deeds delivered after death of grantor/grantee, without consent of grantor
• Marital rights of spouse purportedly, but not legally, divorced
• Undisclosed divorce of spouse who conveys as consort's heir
• Deeds from a bigamous couple
• Deeds by minors
• Deeds in lieu of foreclosure given under duress
• Deeds by persons supposedly single, but married
• Administration of estate of persons absent but not deceased
• Inadequate descriptions on conveyances
• Claims of creditors against property sold by heirs or divisees
• Easements by prescription not discovered by a survey
• Federal condemnation without filing of notice
• Deed of community property recited to be separate property
• Falsification of records
• Undisclosed or missing heirs
• Instruments executed under fabricated or expired Power of Attorney