Owner’s Title Insurance

Many people are unaware of what an owner’s policy of title insurance actual provides. To put it succinctly, an owner’s policy protects you from the claims or rights of others to your property. Those issues could be old mortgages, tax liens, judgments, or claims of interest in the property from inheritance or conveyances by deed.

In most cases, the process of searching the property and creating the commitment to insure will clear up these issues. However, sometimes, there are matters that can not be found in the public record due to mis-indexing, fraud, or other complications. When those issues arise, the only thing standing between the property owner and a potentially large financial loss, is the owner’s title insurance policy.

Think about this, when you finance your property, the lender will almost certainly require you to buy them a lender’s policy of title insurance. They know how valuable that protection is. The cost of adding an owner’s policy is minimal when compared to the costs already incurred to procure the lender’s policy and when compared to the total cost of the real estate transaction. Most real estate attorneys in New Jersey recommend that their clients get owner’s title insurance, whether or not they are getting a mortgage.

Also worth noting, for buyer’s of 1 to 4 family residential properties in New Jersey, an enhanced coverage owner’s policy is available that provides much more coverage than a standard owner’s policy for only a 20% increase in the one-time premium. If you’re interested in an enhanced coverage policy, send us a message here and we’ll have someone reach out to you for an estimate and more information.