What in the World is Title Insurance?

What in the World is Title Insurance?

Did you ever wonder “What in the World is Title Insurance”? This is a common question we are asked by Purchasers, Sellers and Realtors in a transaction. Below is some information that will help answer that question:

What is Title Insurance?
Title Insurance differs from other categories of insurance. Auto, Homeowners, and Fire Insurance require you to pay annual premiums because, unlike Title Insurance, they expect you to make claims periodically throughout the life of the policy. Title Insurance, however, is risk elimination insurance, and requires that you pay a one time premium ONLY.

Risk Elimination
Title Insurance is designed to protect you from being subjected to any unforeseen surprises. The first step to guaranteeing your protection is a title search. By investigating all county records on your property, a title search can verify the seller’s right to transfer ownership, locate any claims, assessments, errors, or miscellaneous defects on the property and virtually eliminate the risk factor for the buyer.

Your Protection
Title Insurance is your safeguard. It can save you trouble, time, and money. It acts as a shield to guard you against potential claims brought against your property. If your ownership becomes threatened by any claim covered in your policy we will negotiate to settle the claim and if necessary defend your title in court.

Title Policy
After the recording, First American Title will issue you a Title Policy. Your policy will guard you against certain risks such as:
Errors: Incorrect information on deeds, public records, etc.
Liens: Unpaid mortgages, taxes, sewer and water assessments,.
Ownership: Outstanding spousal interests, or interests of missing heirs in an estate.
Invalid Deeds: Transfer by former seller who did not actually own the property, or who were not qualified to convey the property.

Why First American:
First American Title Company is one of the top leading title agents nationwide. At First American Title we have experienced Escrow Officers who specialize in all areas of the Real Estate market to guarantee you and your clients are provided with exceptional customer service.

Should you have any questions about title, escrow, or the closing process, please feel free to call me anytime. I am happy to help you in any way that I can.

Norma Giaquinto
Escrow Officer
505-881-3300 Office
ngiaquinto@firstam.com
http://sw.firstam.com/nm

Article contributed by Norma Giaquinto for http://www.BuyaHouseNewMexico.com visit our website for great savings from these home improvement companies:

I'm facing foreclosure what should I do?

With all of the Media speaking about foreclosures, and statistics about rising foreclosures what do you do if you are sitting in the postion of facing foreclosure yourself?

You might consider selling your home, even if you are 2-3 months behind on your mortgage payments and a Lis Pendens has been filed against your property does not mean with an experienced short sale agent like myself or Jordan Knecht; a good short sale Realtor can not help you avoid foreclosure all together. Although your credit score will suffer temporarily it is not as permanent as the black mark of a foreclosure or bankruptcy.

The first step is to determine where you are at and start negotiations with your mortgage holder to negotiate a settlement if there is no equity in the property.

If there is equity in the property, you are better off selling and breaking even than to lose everything in the foreclosure. You can loose your home and be liable for shortfall from the sale of your home by the bank and court costs, and finally your credit rating; alot of people do not consider this to be a loss but consider what you will pay to borrow money in the future for a car, on a credit card, furniture and even another home?

Jordan Knecht and myself have spent our spring saving 3 clients from foreclosure, we also have 3 REO Bank owned properties obviously from people who did not avoid foreclosure. In New Mexico you have by law a 120 redemption period to redeem the property out of foreclosure but most mortgages have clauses in the mortgage that waive your right of redemption to thirty days.

But let me get back to one of the costs of foreclosure with this example:

You owe $180,000 on a home appraised at $200,000.00 you are late 2 mortgage payments but the bank has not filed a Lis Pendens a legal document giving notice that an action or proceeding is pending in the courts which affects the title to the designated property. You place your home up for sale and your agent negotiates a sale at sale price, great! Sign the papers and close quickly!

You owe $180,000 on a home appraised at $200,000.00 you are late 2 mortgage payments but the Bank has not filed a Lis Pendens. You receive an offer for $190,000.00 your agent negotiates the short sale for you with the bank you break even and walk away with 2 late mortgage payments on your credit history which have been repaid.

You owe $180,000 on a home appraised at $200,000.00 you are late 2 mortgage payments but the Bank has not filed a Lis Pendens. You do nothing and the bank forecloses, adding another $5,000 for court costs and puts your home up for sale at current market price of $200,000.00 they get an offer of $160,000.00 because in the meantime the market has declined and the appraisal is now $188,000.00 They sell the home leaving you $20,000.00 on your loan, $5,000.00 for the court costs and the closing costs of the sale of your home $12,800. You can still owe the bank around $37,800 on the loan for a house you can no longer live in? (bank may write off the lose but they may not.)

Even if the home in the example above goes up in value chances are it will not recover the $37,800.00 in costs and you will still be responsible for the amount to the bank.

Facing foreclosure is not where anyone wants to be; but even if you think foreclosure is inevitable call us or your Realtor to see if the situation can be avoided. You can blame the mortgage mess, rising fuel costs and inflation, but anyone can find themselves in foreclosure because of unseen events or illness we are here to help you with every Real Estate need!

With the recent tradegy in Iowa and my own home state of Wisconsin the monies generated by the ads on this blog and www.BuyaHouseNM.com will be donated 50% to Habitat for Humanity and 50% to The American Red Cross for the remainder of 2008.
As we have learned from Katrina the recovery will be a long and slow process so help us by clicking on the ads up to 10% of your purchases will go to help these charities.


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