Vero Beach Title Company
Buying property often comes with risks. Liens can lead to disputes about ownership. Underlying paperwork problems with a home could lead to future complications. These problems are just some reasons why property owners purchase title insurance. It offers a safety net if any issues arise during a real estate transaction.
Lulich & Attorneys is an attorney-led title agency. Our Vero Beach title company offers benefits not afforded by private insurance companies. Not only do we guide clients through buying, selling, or transferring property, but we protect their interests throughout the process. For more information about our services, reach out to Lulich & Attorneys today to learn more about how our Board Certified Real Estate Lawyers help.
Understanding Title Insurance in Vero Beach, Florida Real Estate Transactions
Lulich & Attorneys is a law firm and attorney led title company that provides title insurance for our clients. Whether you are a buyer or seller, you can have peace of mind knowing you have a title company and a legal professional reviewing your title documents to manage your transaction.
Our real estate lawyers can offer services unavailable at most title companies, including helping you understand why you need title insurance and its importance in protecting your purchase and preventing legal claims against you after selling your property.
Sellers generally provide title insurance to buyers to cover the cost of their investment. This insurance policy protects the money the buyer spends in the event of any potential legal claim to the property by a party who is not the buyer or seller. While this is a rare scenario, it can happen. Therefore, you should ensure your purchase has this type of protection as a buyer.
Who Needs Title Insurance
Our team encourages every buyer we represent to purchase sufficient title insurance for their property. For pre-built homes and other property, the seller often provides this policy as one of the agreements in the sales contract.
If you intend to build a new home on the purchased property, you may want to upgrade your policy to ensure it covers both the cost of your new construction and the property’s value. You could also lose your new home if someone else has a valid property claim.
If we represent you, we can ensure you have enough title insurance. If you already closed on your property and started building, our team can review your records and determine your coverage. We can advise you on investing in this coverage and even provide you with a quote.
Situations Where Title Insurance Claims May Prove Necessary
Unfortunately, not all real estate sales come with clear titles. Even if they appear clear during the transaction, an issue that jeopardizes your claim to the property can occur later.
Title companies must look for any claims, liens, or other adverse interests before issuing a title, but this process does not always uncover hidden issues. In some cases, title companies simply fail to do their job correctly.
Title companies should investigate any property thoroughly, looking for issues such as:
- Clerical errors in deeds
- Incorrect or improper descriptions or other information
- Forgeries or misrepresentations on official documents
- Problems stemming from an estate, such as missing heirs
- False ownership claims from neighbors or third parties
- Deeds or other documents signed by someone with a cognitive disability
- Undisclosed liens from contractors who did work on the home
- Claims based on unpaid taxes, utilities, HOA fees, or other expenses
- Other issues that could affect the home’s ownership and title
When our real estate attorneys represent a seller, we can help them manage some of these problems and issue a clear title once we have the lien release, remove an heir from the title, or otherwise correct the paperwork. If we uncover issues while representing a buyer, we can contact the appropriate parties to insist they address the concern. We will not issue a title and move forward with the purchase until we resolve the problem.
Title insurance pays out when a property owner discovers these issues after closing on their real estate purchase.
What Is Title Insurance? Do I Need It?
Buying property in Vero Beach can seem as straightforward as making an offer, filling out some forms, and moving in. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Many aspects of real estate proceedings (both bureaucratic and otherwise) could lead to a complex transaction.
Title insurance offers coverage if any of the following problems impede your real estate goals:
- Clerical errors
- Forged official documents
- Misinterpretations of certain documents
- Problems with an estate, such as heirs or ownership
- False allegations from third parties
- Deeds or other documents improperly signed or notarized
- Undisclosed liens
- Underlying issues with the property, such as structural problems
- Issues with the home’s deed or title
When you purchase property, you want it to have a clean title. That means there aren’t disputes about who owns it or problems that could transfer to new owners. Our team does more than issue title insurance; we can also offer legal help in other aspects of your real estate property transaction.
Title Insurance Doesn’t Cover Everything
Even though our team recommends title insurance, keep in mind that it doesn’t offer coverage in all situations. For instance, imagine the government seizes private property for its use. In that instance, title insurance wouldn’t help—although you could have legal options elsewhere. Another situation involves foreclosure. Title insurance does not offer compensation if your financial situation prohibits you from paying back the lender.
Think of it this way: most forms of insurance protect you from future, unanticipated events. Title insurance protects you from things that have already happened and were out of your control. Title insurance helps with misrepresentation, incorrect information, and other complications in acquiring property.
Our Vero Beach Title Company Can Explain Your Coverage Options
Title insurance refers to a one-time, upfront payment that protects your real estate transaction. You don’t have to make ongoing payments because the transaction will not continue indefinitely. Still, you may wonder how much coverage you should purchase to protect your interests.
Our team evaluates your property’s history, any possible issues, and your own finances when explaining what policy you should purchase. We share your goal of protecting your legal rights while making a high-stakes transaction.
Why Partner With Our Vero Beach Title Company Team?
Most title agencies have two goals: to sell policies and make a profit. Therefore, insurance representatives are all smiles when they sell policies. Yet, claimants often find a different story once they file a claim. Dealing with an unforeseen problem while purchasing real estate can prove difficult enough. Facing bad faith insurance practices only makes matters worse.
At Lulich & Attorneys, we have your best interests in mind. We help people with real estate matters because we know how complicated these situations can be. When you purchase title insurance from our team in Vero Beach, we:
Review the Terms of Your Real Estate Contract
We go through your real estate contract line-by-line to ensure nothing gets overlooked. We examine clauses, closing costs, and other obligations. If possible, we may negotiate the terms of your agreement with the other party. That way, you can walk away with a clean title and a new property when the process ends.
Work to Allow You to Complete a Home Inspection
At first glance, you could walk through a home and think there’s nothing wrong with it. However, a trained professional could spot structural issues, problems with wiring, and other hazards. Unfortunately, the seller may discourage you from completing a home inspection, hoping you’ll take their word at face value.
Yet, our years of experience have shown us the importance of a home inspection before purchasing a property. So, when you get title insurance from our Vero Beach firm, we ensure you know everything about purchasing a property before closing. That way, you know exactly what you’re getting into.
Manage Contingency Offers
A real estate transaction generally has two parties: the buyer and the seller. Sometimes, transactions hinge on contingency agreements, where one thing must happen for another to occur.
Consider this scenario to understand more:
- You find the home of your dreams and decide to submit an offer.
- The seller has not found another residence yet.
- They may make a contingent offer, saying if they can find a home in X amount of days, they’ll sell you the property.
In this situation, two things could happen: the seller could find a new residence and go through with the transaction. However, the seller might not find a home and reject the offer. This can put buyers in dire financial straits—especially if they’ve already sold their property and have nowhere to live.
Our lawyers ensure that your title insurance policy accounts for any issues arising from contingency-based offers. We can also review and explain the risk of contingency-based offers as they apply to your transaction.
Help You Back out of Tough Situations
Here’s a scenario we’re all too familiar with. A prospective homeowner decides on a property. But then, after a title search, you could find several issues with the property, from liens to code violations. With title insurance, you minimize the financial repercussions of backing out of a sale. With title insurance from our team in Vero Beach, we offer additional support when canceling a sale. We advise you of your legal options, explain real estate law, and put your concerns to rest.
Support You During Real Estate Closings
Closing refers to the final step of a real estate transaction. Yet, it’s a difficult time fraught with potential challenges. Unanswered questions, outstanding concerns, and other problems could make you think twice about signing on the dotted line. This is where Lulich & Attorneys comes in.
We make sure that we have all the documents needed to complete the transaction, including:
- A settlement statement
- Deeds
- Title documents
- Mortgage notes
- Closing disclosures
- The loan application
- Various closing documents
We want you to feel comfortable securing new property, including real estate closings. With our team, you get more than an insurance policy. You get a team of advocates.
Offer Resources
You need resources when purchasing property. That way, you know what to expect and can make informed decisions.
Our attorney-led title company in Vero Beach offers a suite of legal resources to potential property owners, such as:
- Our closing costs calculator. Want to know how much you could spend on closing costs? We offer a program that allows you to view this information. Just type in your name, property’s information, and other small details to get started.
- A no-obligation consultation. You may want to explore your legal options but feel unsure about title insurance and how it works. That’s why we offer consultations to prospective property owners in Vero Beach. Here, we can listen to your concerns and answer your questions. Again, you have no obligation to purchase title insurance when you call.
- Consistent availability. Some insurance companies take days to respond to policyholders’ messages. Yet, we’re not an insurance company. We aim to remain in contact throughout your real estate transaction. We also stand ready to support you in any way we can.
We strive to offer excellent service to each client we come across. We believe that our strong values create seamless experiences when purchasing title insurance.
Our Real Estate Attorneys Help Our Clients Negotiate Terms of Their Contract
When representing buyers or sellers, our lawyers understand what is important and how to protect the client’s rights. This often includes negotiating numerous clauses as a part of the sale agreement. Our team can help you with common, standard clauses and unique needs based on your circumstances and go over the sales contract review. Our Vero Beach real estate lawyers can go over the agreement and any requests made by the other party line-by-line, ensuring you understand each one. We review these documents to ensure they do not expose our clients to any unreasonable risks, legally or financially. Some standard terms that we may add or the other party could request include:
Allowing a Home Inspection Before Closing
It only makes sense to protect the buyer from the possibility of any undisclosed issues with the foundation, roof, structure, electrical wiring, plumbing, or other parts of the property by allowing them to bring in a certified home inspector to look for problems. It also limits their ability to come back later and file a legal claim accusing the seller of not mentioning specific issues.
How the Seller Will Handle Repairs
If the home inspector or another party discovers concerns with the property during the transaction, some form of agreement should determine how the seller will handle it. Possible outcomes could include:
- They sell the house “as is,” usually at a lower price.
- They make the repairs before the sale.
- They cover the cost of the repairs as a line item on the settlement statement.
Handling Contingency Offers
Often, the seller is also a buyer and vice versa. We often handle cases where we help clients sell their homes and purchase new ones. Timing this process can prove challenging. For this reason, many people make contingency offers. They bid to buy a home contingent on the sale of their property or approval of a mortgage. We need to put a plan in place for how this will work and the rules surrounding it. For example, we may need to say the seller has the right to cancel the transaction if the buyer does not receive mortgage approval within 60 days or another set term.
Options to Cancel the Sale if We Discover Title Concerns
As a title company, our team works to ensure no outstanding claims against the home exist before we issue a title. However, sometimes another party mishandles this process, or undisclosed issues pop up. For example, if another party has a financial or legal claim to the property, we need to ensure our client can back out of the sale if we cannot resolve the issue quickly. If this issue occurs after the sale, you need sufficient title insurance, so we encourage our clients to purchase it.
You Could Take Advantage of a Digital Closing in Your Real Estate Transaction
In 2019, the Florida State Legislature passed House Bill 409. This new remote online notarization bill under Florida Statutes law makes it much easier to sell your home or purchase property in Florida, even if you live in another state. Under this law:
- Notaries can verify signatures remotely.
- You can sign digitally for real estate transactions.
- We can process digital closings on real estate transactions.
Before this law passed, all closings we handled were traditional. We all met around a conference table, and both the buyer and the seller signed numerous documents. These documents outlined the sale, deed transfer, mortgage terms, and more. Every signer and co-signer needed to be present. For some, this required making a special trip to Vero Beach, coming to town out of season, or flying in co-signers from a different part of the country. People often had to take the day off work, and the process could take hours. The process can prove easier and faster today, thanks to digital closing. Handling all paperwork and signatures digitally offers greater efficiency. We can manage a real estate closing in a few minutes, even if the parties are thousands of miles apart. While we can still hold traditional closings, a digital closing offers many benefits. They include:
- You do not have to take off work or travel for closing.
- You can save money on flights, hotels, and other expenses.
- There are fewer opportunities for human error to mar a digital closing and require additional attention.
Whether you opt for a digital or a traditional closing, our attorneys can help you understand everything you need to sign and what each document means. With digital closings, you have more time to review the documents individually and ask questions if you have them. You do not feel rushed, and you won’t feel pressured by others sitting in the room waiting on you to read page upon page of legal paperwork.
Our Real Estate Lawyers Handle Closing for Our Vero Beach Clients
When the time comes for our Vero Beach real estate transaction clients to close on the sale of the property, we handle all tasks associated with the closing process. Closing requires several parties having everything they need to approve the transaction and signing the paperwork to finalize it. This includes:
- The loan application and estimate
- Mortgage note
- Closing disclosures
- Title documents
- Deed
- Settlement statement
Our real estate lawyers make sure everyone properly signs these documents. We also take the time to review all the necessary documents with our clients and explain their obligations. This may include closing costs, which our attorney calculates and reviews with our clients. The closing costs calculator at the bottom of this page can give you a general idea, but numerous other factors are involved in some transactions. Before our clients go to closing—in-person or digitally—we discuss what to expect. We want to ensure our clients feel comfortable and have the answers to their questions before we move forward with the transaction. If necessary, we can also handle any last-minute issues.
Reviewing the Settlement Statement
The settlement statement, sometimes known as a home settlement, details the money exchanged in a real estate transaction. This includes a line-item account of what happened during negotiations and as a result of your contract. Both buyers and sellers should review this statement closely. When you work with our team, we can explain the settlement statement to you and detail what each line means. We believe you should understand this document thoroughly, as it shows what you paid in total as a buyer or the net proceeds you will receive as a seller. The list generally begins with the agreed-on sales price for the property. Then it lists several credits and debits and who bears responsibility for each. Ultimately, it totals your financial responsibility or the money you will receive. The entries on this statement commonly include:
- Any money for necessary repairs to the property
- Property taxes due to date
- Outstanding Utility bills due to date
- The premium for title insurance
- Any real estate agent’s fees
- Any contributed closing costs
- Transfer Tax and Recording Fees
- Other fees
Handling All Post-Closing Tasks
After the buyer and seller sign the paperwork, their job concludes. However, our team must complete several more steps. Generally, title companies record the mortgage and the deed. However, our firm can handle this task. In addition, we ensure that the Indian River County Clerk receives the proper paperwork and all documents to record the sale accurately.
Frequently Asked Questions About Purchasing Title Insurance in Vero Beach
When prospective policyholders call for their no-obligation consultations, they generally have many questions about title insurance and how it works. We understand that you may have many of the same inquiries. So, we’ve listed some of the most commonly asked questions about title insurance below.
Who Needs Title Insurance?
Everyone should have title insurance if they move forward with a real estate transaction. Buying property is one of the biggest transactions you could ever make. Having title insurance prevents you from spending thousands of dollars on unforeseeable issues. You also get options not available to those without insurance.
What Different Types of Title Insurance Exist?
You could choose from two main types of title insurance:
- Lender’s title insurance. When you take out a mortgage, the lender may require that you purchase title insurance. This protects its interests if the transaction falls through or other problems arise.
- Owner’s title insurance. This protects you when attempting to purchase real estate. Your coverage is generally equal to the purchase price of the property. While many lenders require lender’s title insurance, they typically do not require owner’s title insurance.
Our team understands that you may have many questions about title insurance and which policy best suits your situation. We can go over the types of coverage our team offers and go from there.
What Could Happen if I Don’t Have Title Insurance and Something Goes Wrong?
Many people neglect to purchase title insurance because they think it’s expensive. In reality, the upfront cost of title insurance pales compared to the untold financial risk of a problematic property. Imagine a situation where, after closing, you learn that the previous owner had unpaid property taxes. The property’s now yours, so you’re responsible for those unpaid fees. Title insurance protects you from this risk. The right plan could offer coverage that accounts for any outstanding debts attached to your new property.
Do I Need Title Insurance for a Newly-Constructed Home?
We recommend purchasing title insurance even if you’ll be the first person living in a house. The reason? New construction comes with its own liabilities not expected of older homes. Some of these liabilities include:
- Undetermined boundaries. A surveyor may rely on older documents when drawing a property’s boundaries. If they make a mistake, or something has changed, title insurance can protect you from any complications.
- Liens on the land. Creditors don’t just impose liens on houses; they can also impose liens on undeveloped land. Without title insurance, you could inherit those liens—even if you played no role in the initial debt.
- Unpaid wages. A party involved in your home’s construction may fail to pay contractors. If that happens, the contractors could put a lien on your home. They could also take other measures that prevent you from acquiring the property.
What Are Bad Faith Insurance Practices?
While shopping around for title insurance, you may have heard something about bad faith insurance practices. This refers to unscrupulous practices that prevent you from getting fairly compensated when filing a claim. Some bad faith insurance practices appear obvious. For instance, if the insurer denies compensation that’s explicitly stated in your policy, this could point to unfair dealings. However, some aren’t as obvious. You don’t deal with bad faith insurance practices when you purchase title insurance from our Vero Beach office. We explain your coverage options outright and advocate for what you need.
What Should I Know About Lulich & Attorneys?
At Lulich & Attorneys, we’re professional problem solvers. When people come to us concerned about their legal matters, we lend a helping hand. We have more than 35 years of experience serving people at our office in Vero Beach. We have countless testimonials, each attesting to our extensive experience and compassion. We want you to walk away from the real estate process, keys in hand, ready to start your new life. You can learn about our history of client satisfaction and your options for purchasing title insurance in Vero
Contact Our Team to Learn About Our Real Estate Transaction and Title Services
Lulich & Attorneys supports buyers and sellers in real estate transactions and provides options for title insurance in Vero Beach.
Our Board Certified Vero Beach Real Estate Lawyers provide the necessary protection for everyone when closing on a home. If you hire us to help with your purchase or sale, we can advocate on your behalf, provide guidance and advice, and ensure the process goes smoothly.
Reach the Lulich & Attorneys team now by calling (321) 334-2437 or contacting us online.