House buying ?- did you get owner's title insurance?

[Bernadine]

I can't figure out if it's a scam or not.

[TR]

I'm pretty sure that's something you don't want to forgo. It prevents you from be liable from any liens that may be on the property that for whatever reason come up in the future.

[TR]

These explain things better than I can:

www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/title-insurance-buyer-needs-36126.html

www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/6-questions-to-ask-about-title-insurance-1.aspx

[shopgirl07]

Yes. It's pretty important.

[kadams767]

Yes. Owners title insurance on residential properties is inexpensive, a drop in the bucket of house-buying costs and it is forever (as long as you own the home). There really isn't a good reason to skip it.

[chimera]

Yep

It wasn't much to add owner's policy to the lender policy.

[peachykate]

Not a scam, I even buy it on the homes we flip. If came in handy recently in a house we were selling - the title company missed an old mortgage when we bought the house and it came up when we were selling. The title insurance covered it and we didn't have to worry about it.

[kris356]

Yep always.

And luckily, our seller did when she bought because the title was all screwed up when it was transferred to her and she had to use if.

[polarbearfans]

Yes! Not an area to try and skip to save money. You def want it

[pizzanight]

Most lenders will require both owners and lenders title insurance as a condition of closing. I would get it anyway, but you may not have the option to skip buying a policy.

[imojoebunny]

Absolutely, not a scam! Once your house is paid off (banks usually have their own for a mortgage), if you find any weird things, you won't be able to sell it, without clearing the title, which can be very expensive ($30K+ for the person who re-developed the lot our house is on.) If you have a weird sewer, ancient easement, no easement, but someone decides to infringe on your property over time, or other nonsense, it protects you. We had one house that had a dead woman on the title, whose estate had never been probated, and title insurance made sure the right people had to deal with it (not us). Once we had an issue where I was never put on the title correctly with the county, and they dealt with it.

[lessel]

Yep and we used it shortly after we closed because a subcontractor during some renovations didn't get paid and they came after us as the homeowners. The title insurance totally took care of the situation for us.

[icedcoffee]

I didn't think it was optional. We have never had a choice.

Anyway, it came in handy when we refinanced and found the previous owners still had a mortgage open on the house. The insurance made it free and easy to fix.

[Bernadine]

Thanks everyone!

[mrsjuleshs]

I don't think we did but we did buy the house from my mom who'd owned it for over 8 years.