What Real Estate Agents Should Request From Title Before Listing a Home
Clarity on Title, Closing, and Risk, Without the Noise
I always say to new real estates agents,
“We(title) see what a realtor will see once in their career, often once a month or once a year.” It’s true, there are a lot fewer title companies than realtors or loan officers. We experience more volume of transactions, so we come across certain types of challenges in deals more often.
Whether you’ve been through 10 transactions or 500, you’ve probably experienced one headache or possibly found yourself in a position where the deal didn’t go as smoothly as it should have.
Request the Right Data From Title Up Front
Rather than find yourself in tough spot later where you may not have all the owners on board or you’re unaware of some type of lien that could add several weeks to clear up, request the right data from title up front. I see a lot of real estate agents relying on the 1–2 page report fom their MLS login.
The problem with this report is it’s prone to data errors as it’s digitally automated (not examined or guaranteed), the data is also abbreviated to fit a certain number of characters within a set amount of space a there it’s pretty much always going to be incomplete.
Start With a Full Property Profile
Prior to listing a home for sale, at minimum, you should have an experienced Title Rep or customer service rep pull a full property profile. With this, you can confirm public data about property characteristics, see clearly who owns the property, possibly see more comparable data and even confirm which liens apply to this property.
We can provide maps or surveys if they have been recorded. The more data you have up front, the better things will go through the experience. If the property characteristics seem inaccurate with what is physically there, this is your opportunity to clear this up with the seller.
Actions Before Open Escrow
Aside from having your title company provide the full property profile, a preliminary title report is absolutely necessary prior to opening escrow. Imagine you list the home and get offers that want to close quickly, the preliminary will be ready immediately for a buyer to review and move forward without excuses. The property profile will have lots of public data, but the preliminary report will have even more useful info, likely easements, conditions, covenants & restrictions, agreements, covenants with a city or HOA – all of which would affect how a buyer enjoys the property.
If your seller has any questionable deeds that came before the most recent one, there will be notes or requirements so we can address this early on. Having an official report like this makes it easier to go to the owner and say, “The title or escrow company will need help clearing this up.”
Put This on Us
Put this on us! That’s what we are here for!
Additionally, if we have a preliminary report, this means we have a file and can collect the seller’s statement of information to clear up possible tax liens, judgments, or anything else that could be tied to their name. We can’t offer this clarity without having a file open.
Here is a pre-listing prep list for what to ask for from the title:
Full property profile with all deeds back to the last full sale and all open loans
Full tax report to uncover any special tax assessments or delinquencies
If it’s a special property, ask us for help with comparables
Preliminary Title Report
Plotted easements
Ask about anything you think is important or concerning!
