Hi, I’m Beth with TB Properties Buys Land. Today we’re going to discuss whether you need to have a copy of your abstract or owner’s policy in-hand when you’re selling your bare land to TB Properties Buys Land. If you received a letter in the mail from us with an offer to purchase your rural vacant land for cash, closing through a license title company, one of the stipulations we list is that you need to have an abstract or an owner’s policy and provide that to us. We ask for that only if it is available. Now, the little secret is that when we close through a title company, they’re going to dig through all of the past title policies for the property, all of the deeds, and they’re going to go through that from the very beginning of that land’s history, up until the present.
With that said, if there were past owner policies and such, they’re going to see that. The reason that we would want to see that ahead of time, if you have that on hand, is that a lot of times that will answer any questions we might have with regard to legal access or easements if there is a question of access at all. Another reason we like to have the past owner’s policy or abstract is if this is inherited land. Sometimes we’ve run into some of these old inherited properties where the legal description that they have at the county is not accurate, and the title company will ask, “Hey, do you have an old copy of your abstract or owner’s policy”? This will often save a ton of time in the closing process if there are any discrepancies that they run into. We can get that going sooner and we can be more accurate.
Bottom line is, if you have a copy of your owner’s policy, abstract or even a past survey, it can be very helpful if provided up-front to us but most of the time it is not necessary. It might even be helpful or requested by the title company in the case of inherited property and questions about the disbursement of land via the family. We here at TB Properties Buys Land, have run into a handful of times where title companies have actually asked us for that. A few times we have been told that providing the past policy would speed up the process of closing since they had found a discrepancy in the online county records and they didn’t know how soon they would be able to get to the county in-person in order to start checking that out but that the past policy would allow them to get started faster. They’ve told us that that could save some time, a matter of weeks to even a month worth of time in complicated cases like that.
Now, we do understand if you have inherited property, maybe those files were never passed on to you, perhaps they were lost in a fire, or were just plain lost, that kind of thing. I want to be clear that we are not going to pass on purchasing your property just because you don’t have a copy of your owner’s policy or your abstract. I want you to understand that having your owner’s policy, an abstract or a survey is NOT necessary to sell your property to us but it certainly can be helpful. In sum, although the purchase agreement included in your offer letter may state we require the owner’s policy or abstract, it will not be stated as a requirement on the purchase agreement sent to you with the negotiated price on it.
If you have any questions about abstracts, owner’s policies, please let us know. I want you to understand that if you’re selling your land to TB Properties Buys Land, we’re going to pay for all the closing costs, and that includes the title insurance. That includes all the title work that’s going to be done for you as the seller, for us as the buyer, and that we pay both sides of the closing costs. We pay for the recording fees that go to the county, and any transfer taxes that take place. In sum, we pay for all closing costs. But again, owner’s policy, abstract, not necessary, but it does help if you have a chance to pull that up and send that over to us. Thanks again for listening. I look forward to hearing from you.