SERVICES

Title insurance is a policy between the buyer, homeowner or lender and the Title Company that provides loss coverage in the event a title defect arises that results in a claim against your ownership. Title insurance exists to protect a homeowner’s right to purchase, occupy, use the property as they wish and sell their property when they’d like. Title policies will in accordance with the terms of the policy assure the insured of a legal defense, pay all court and related expenses. If a claim is made and proves valid, the Title Company will reimburse the insured homeowner for actual loss up to the face amount of the policy.

Title Policies provide coverage for the following

• Errors in tax records
• Forged deeds, mortgages, releases and wills
• Deeds by minors
• Rights of divorced parties
• Deeds by persons falsely representing their marital status
• Conveyances by undisclosed divorced spouses
• Defective acknowledgements due to improper or expired notarization
• Mistakes and omissions resulting in improper title examinations
• Forfeitures of real property due to criminal acts
• Fraud
• Deeds and wills by persons of unsound mind
• Undisclosed heirs
• Survey matters
• False impersonation of the true landowner
• Deeds not properly recorded
• False affidavits of death or heirship
• Probate matters
• Documents executed by a revoked or expired Power of Attorney

Types of Title Policies

Owner’s Policy

If you’ve ever obtained a mortgage when purchasing a home, you were most likely required to purchase title insurance. From an ownership perspective, an “owner’s policy” protect your rights as a homeowner for as long as you or your heirs own or have interest in the insured property.

Lender’s Policy

Lender’s policies (often referred to as a loan policy) are usually required by lending institutions as a means of protecting their security interest in the property. Lender’s policies provide the lending institution with policy coverage for as long as they have an interest in the property. Lender’s policies are typically issued when both purchasing or refinancing your home.

Atlas provides escrow services associated with real estate transactions on the behalf of consumers and lenders. Escrow in its most basic form is a fiduciaryA fiduciary is a person or organization that acts on behalf of another person or persons to manage assets. Essentially, a fiduciary owes to that other entity the duties of honesty and trust. service whereby Atlas acts a trusted third-party facilitator of certain specific functions such as receipt and disbursement of all transaction funds, contract verifications and that all appropriate and required documents are executed and recorded. Escrow officers coordinate the smooth flow of documents to all parties involved, obtain approvals, reports and legal documents, keep all parties updated throughout the transaction, secure the issuance of the title insurance policy, manage the recording of all documents, as well as distribute funds for title insurances, loan payoffs, real estate commissions and any other required disbursements prior to close.

A Notary Public is a state licensed public officer that serves the public in a non-contentious manner to administer oaths and affirmations, take affidavits and statutory declarations, witness and authenticate the execution of specific legal documents. A secondary function of a notary public is the validation and verification of the individual signer(s) identity. This is accomplished via the presentation of state specific accepted and approved forms of identification that must be presented during the document signing session. The actual notarization of documents can be facilitated either at a public notaries place of business or in the signer’s home, place of business or in an agreed upon location via the utilization of a mobile notary service. A list of documents that require notarization include deeds, conveyances, powers-of-attorney and other transaction specific documents.

The consummation of any of any real estate transaction where a title insurance policy is issued requires that all necessary and executed documents are recorded with the local state government filing department usually referred to as the county recorder’s office. The recording of any number of transaction specific documents provide a legal record of the ownership and encumbrance of the insured property with the appropriate local government’s filing department.  The Title Company (e.g. Atlas) typically prepares both title and lender documents for recording.