Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr
What's confusing me is why the buyer should have to insure himself against bad title. If something goes wrong with the title down the road, shouldn't that be the responsibility of the seller?
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It depends. In some parts of the country, like New England, the only kind of deed you can get is a Quit Claim deed. What you are paying for when a buy a property in this case is for seller give up their right to claim that they own the property. In this case the buyer takes on all the risk of the title not being clear.
Since there is no way to know if there was some obscure land grant or a mistake in the recording of a deed the seller or buyer might want to purchase title insurance to cover their liability if something like that happens. But as always it depends on how the laws of the state treat the sale of property and what the seller an buyer agree to.
When we lived in Massachusetts there were a few instances where home some owners end up with ownership issues because 200 years before some Indian lands were not properly accounted for. I forget the ultimate outcome but I remember that those property owners were not able to sell their properties for years.