Who?
Residential title insurance can be purchased by anyone who is buying a residential property.
What?
Title insurance is an alternative to a solicitor's opinion and it protects you if someone else claims a legal interest in your property. It can compensate against pre-existing municipal work orders, frauds, and forgeries which can affect the legal ownership of the property.
Just as with a solicitor's opinion on title, you would work with a RealProperty Network Real Estate lawyer. The lawyer remains an integral part of the transaction and closing.
Where?
Residential title insurance is available for a variety of residential properties across Canada, including vacant land, single family homes, duplexes, triplexes, 4-plexes, mobile homes, cottages, condominium, and co-operatives.
Title insurance also insures commercial properties, however different coverage and premiums apply.
When?
For a one-time premium, title insurance is obtained at the time the purchaser is buying the property. Now, it is also available if the owner already maintains an ownership interest in the property. An owner, must obtain title insurance for a lender any time that the property is being mortgaged.
Why?
A title insurance policy provides you with more protection than a lawyer's opinion. It also protects you from certain types of fraud, including those that can occur after you purchase your home.
Title insurance protection goes beyond that of a traditional lawyer's opinion
A lawyer's opinion that you are getting clear title to your property is subject to certain limitations, including that there are no forged documents in the chain of title and that the information provided by the municipality is accurate. The opinion also is valid only at the point in time that the deed is registered. A title insurance policy will compensate you for title defects even if there are forged documents in the chain of title, or inaccuracies in the information provided by the municipality. As well, a residential title insurance policy provides coverage for certain title defects which can occur long after the deed is registered. It can compensate you if in the future, a forged document is registered which purports to affect your legal ownership of your property.
In addition, a title insurance policy provides "Defense of Title" coverage, whereby the title insurance company will pay all legal costs associated with a challenge to your legal ownership for any covered title risk.
The title insurance Residential Gold Policy protects homeowners from the risk of title defects, including the following standard coverage: liens against the title, violations of municipal setback of zoning requirements, structures located on an adjoining property (other than boundary walls or fences), frauds or forgeries affecting title, arrears of realty taxes or utility charges (other than final water meter readings).
Reduced transaction costs
To give an opinion that you are getting clear title to the property, a lawyer has to conduct various searches of government records. These searches can cost several hundreds of dollars, depending on the fees in the area. With title insurance, the need for many of these searches is eliminated, and the savings frequently offsets the cost of a policy.
Title insurance eliminates the need for a survey / Certificate of Location / RPR
Mortgage lenders require an up to date survey / Certificate of Location / RPR of the property as a condition of the mortgage. If the seller does not have one, you will have to obtain one at a cost of several hundred dollars. Most lenders will waive the requirement for a survey / Certificate of Location / RPR if you buy title insurance for the lender.
Simplified claims process
If you rely on a lawyer's opinion, and it turns out there is a title defect, you will have to sue the lawyer and prove that the lawyer acted in a negligent fashion to recover any compensation for the defect. Not all title defects result from the lawyer's mistakes. In those cases, you would have nowhere to look for compensation. With a title insurance policy, the claims process is simplified. All you have to do is show that you have suffered as a result of title defect covered by the policy, and there will be compensation, regardless of whether the defect was caused by a lawyer's error or not.
A part of every purchase ...
In every purchase transaction finalized by RealProperty Transaction Centres Inc. the buyers and lender are covered by a title insurance policy.
www.chicagotitle.ca
While most insurance protects against unpleasant events of the future, title insurance protects against unpleasant events of the past. Title insurance protects an owner of a residential or commercial property against loss or damage suffered due to defects, fraud, liens or encumbrances relating to the owner's title. In other words, if anything went wrong concerning the title of your property before it was transferred to you, you're covered. This single, one-time premium is in effect for as long as you own the property and best of all, it is included when you close your transaction with RealProperty.
