OT - Land Purchase
Ok…anyone here a realtor? I have a very OT question.
We found some land we are wanting to buy from an individual. It is only 2 acres and $10,000.
We are paying cash. I called a title company and after all of their fees it is almost $1,300 dollars to get a title policy and “close” on the property.
Is there a way I can do this myself? I really want the title policy to make sure the guy actually owns the land and make sure there are no owed taxes. But I don’t want to pay SO much if it is something I can do.
Is this something I can do to assure we are clear to purchase it without having to go through a title company?
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Your state may have rules
Your state may have rules that require certain qualifications of a closing attorney... and some fees may be required like recording fees.. the locality may require some. You can request an itemized list of the fees perhaps and shop that around. You might just get the title search.. but not the insurance (means that you are told there are no issues.. but you are not covered if they did a "bad" job and there is something they didn't find).
Some of what you are being quoted might include taxes etc... too.
Again, you can try to shop it around, but you may find you are "stuck" using a closing atty to do this. I know I recently was just refinancing something and we had to have an atty submit the deed. They wouldn't allow the seller to do it.
Did the title company break
Did the title company break out their costs? Do you know how much you are paying for the actual title insurance (which you want), vs. how much you're paying for closing and other services? On a $10,000 property I can't imagine that much of that is the title insurance. However, they're not going to let you do your own title search or record your own documents and still issue a policy, because there's risk involved. I'm not sure if they'd let you separate the closing services, but you'd probably need to hire someone to do it even if they did. Take a close look at their fees. There may be some you can cut out. There could be endorsements to the policy that you could do without. You could try to negotiate on some of the fees.
You could do your own title search at the office of the recorder of deeds (or equivalent) in the applicable county, but unless you know what you're doing you could miss something, and it still wouldn't give you the insurance, just some peace of mind. Real estate laws are local and can vary greatly from place to place, so unless you know what you're doing, it's probably better to let the professionals handle it. $1300 seems pretty high as a percentage, so you might want to shop it.
There may be some semi fixed
There may be some semi fixed costs too. It will take generally just as much time for a title search and document prep on a cheap property vs an expensive one. Unfortunately... some of these may be fairly set without much wiggle room.
what could help is if the owner has a fairly recent title search.. if provided or if same title company is used, they may be able to do a quick snuggle up search for a lesser cost.
They did break it out. The
They did break it out. The title policy was fairly cheap. $238.00 The rest was other fees …settlement fee. Deed fee…Tax fee. And I think a few others. What about a Deed Warranty? The seller says we can just get that. He does not want to do all of the closing stuff either but I am not sure about how legit it all is.
I agree, check with different
I agree, check with different title companies. I just sold my share of a property to a sibling, and the closing costs were less than that for a much more expensive piece of property. I wanted to use my preferred title company, sib wanted to use one in the county where the property is located. Their fees were higher, maybe because it's a small town? Anyway, I said fine, but you're paying the costs. My sib isn't the brightest, and thought they'd won and got their own way.
So I found one that will do
So I found one that will do it for $800.00. The only problem is that it is a few hours away from where we live. (closer to the property). The seller lives in our town and I am not sure how far he is willing to go to just transfer the deed. GGGRRR. He thinks it is as simple as going to the bank and court house and doing it ourselves. Plus get a warranty deed. Whatever that is.
A warranty deed is a type of
A warranty deed is a type of deed where the seller makes warranties concerning the title, as opposed to a quitclaim deed, where the seller conveys whatever interest it has without making any warranties with respect to title. As the buyer you want a warranty deed. There is probably a standard form warranty deed available for your state.
Title company is an insurance company
They check the records and gives you insurance that no one else has rights to that land. native Indians? Us government? Ect. You have to pay for that. You can’t write an insurance policy yourself. Deeds taxes fee are charge by the government offices that does deeds, state, country, local government. People there can walk you through the progress.
Have you ever ever that phrase "don't waste the pretty?"
You are only young once. Many women get to their 30's and 40's and get highly pissed that they wasted 'the pretty", the best most energetic, beautiful, vibrant years of their life on someone not worthy of it. Because when it's gone, it's gone. You'll get to be my age and you'll be stuck with a 60 year old man with ED who just wants to sit in a reclincer with his beer watching the Price is Right. You wouldn't have traveled to Paris and had a romantic dinner on a terrace in New Orleans and you will want those things. You won't have a partner that can keep up with you