What Does a Title Company Do?

Have you ever wondered, "What they heck does the title company do" when you're buying or selling a home? Great! My buddy Joey and I were talking the other day and thought it might be helpful if we took some time to chat about the ESSENTIAL, 3rd leg of the every real estate transaction. You're not going to want to miss this one!

[Brendan] Alright, what's up everybody? I'm out here today with Joey from Universal Title, and you know, a common question that we get with a lot of our buyers is what is a title company and what do they do? Can you shed some light for us?

[Joey] Sure, thanks for having me Brendan. Title companies have two main functions, two main roles. Primarily, we are in charge of the funds, right? So buyers paying seller, and then usually there's a loan involved and we have to make sure that all the funds transfer appropriately to the seller, maybe there's a mortgage company that's being paid off from the seller's loan. Also, we have the pay the county because of transfer and record-aging taxes. So we get those funds down to the last cent and make sure that everything transfers appropriately. The other main function of a title company is to check the chain of title. You could also call it the chain of possession of the property and try to do all of our due diligence to make sure that there's no outstanding physical interest in the property, like from an old owner, from whose family says, "Hey, this is actually my property. "It should have gone to me in that will 10 years ago, "that it was left to me." And also, somebody that might claim a financial interest against the property. For instance, like a contractor or someone who said they did work or needed to put this lien against the property and we checked the land records and try to make sure that all that's squared away in time for settlement, so that the seller can really sell the property and has the right to sell the property to the new buyer.

[Brendan] That's awesome. Yeah, so you guys are pretty critical. I mean, we have, typically, a lender, the agent, and you guys are sort of that third leg of the triangle there, trying to make sure we're getting from contract to close.

[Joey] Yes sir, thank you for mentioning that. We essentially work as a neutral third party, just the intermediary honoring the integrity of the transaction; yep.

[Brendan] That's great. Well, thanks for coming.