How to read a title commitment: Schedule A, the requirements, the exceptions — and Florida's gap rule

The document most parties never read

Weeks before closing, the title agent delivers a title commitment: the insurer's written statement of the terms on which it will insure the title once closing happens. Florida law puts a search behind it — under § 627.7845, Fla. Stat., no commitment or policy may issue until the insurer has caused a determination of insurability to be made from a reasonable title search — and the form itself is one the Office of Insurance Regulation has approved under § 627.777, which in practice means the ALTA Commitment form in its current edition.

Most buyers, sellers, and even agents never open it. That is a mistake measured in closing-week surprises: nearly every late problem — a payoff that was never ordered, an estoppel that arrived with a balance, a name that does not match the contract, an easement under the planned pool — is written on the commitment weeks earlier. Reading its three schedules takes ten minutes.

Educational information, not legal advice. The commitment tells you what the public records show and what the insurer requires; what an exception means for how you can use the property is a legal question for a licensed Florida attorney — the law firm we operate alongside, or your own. We explain what the document says and what the closing team does with it.

Schedule A — what is being insured

Check these four things against the contract, the loan application, and the survey the day the commitment arrives. A misspelled name, a price that was renegotiated after the commitment was ordered, or a legal description that does not match the survey is the easiest fix in the file — and, left for closing day, the most common cause of a last-minute correction.

• The Commitment Date: the date through which the public records were examined. It is not the closing date — more on that gap below.
• The policy or policies to be issued and their amounts: an owner's policy for the purchase price, a loan policy for the loan amount.
• The Proposed Insured: the buyer, named exactly as title will be taken, and the lender exactly as it appears on the loan documents.
• The current owner of record — the person or entity whose deed will convey — and the legal description of the land.

Schedule B, Part I — Requirements: what must happen before the policy issues

Each requirement is a task. Until every one is satisfied, the commitment is a promise with conditions, not a policy. The usual list on a Florida sale: the deed from the owner of record to the proposed insured; the mortgage to be insured; payoff and recorded satisfaction of every mortgage and lien the search found; releases of any judgments against the seller; estoppel certificates from the condominium or homeowners' association; documents proving authority when the seller is an estate, a trust, or a business entity — letters of administration, a trust certification, a corporate resolution; and the customary owner's and construction-lien affidavits signed at the table.

The requirements that take the longest are the ones that depend on a third party: a payoff statement from a servicer, an estoppel from an association, letters from a probate court. Raised at contract, they are paperwork. Raised at the table, they are a delay.

• When a requirement names you — your deed, your payoff, your trust papers — it is your task. Ask the closing team what satisfies it and by when.
• Our Closing Pre-Flight check on this site mirrors the common requirements so the questions get asked at contract, not at closing.

Schedule B, Part II — Exceptions: what the policy will not cover

Exceptions are matters the policy takes no responsibility for. Two kinds appear. The standard exceptions are printed on every commitment until something removes them: rights of parties in possession; easements or claims of easements not shown by the public records; encroachments, overlaps, boundary-line disputes, and anything else a correct survey would disclose; construction liens not yet recorded; and taxes and assessments for the current year and later years, not yet due and payable. The specific exceptions come from the search of this property: recorded easements and rights-of-way, restrictive covenants and plat notes, the condominium declaration or association covenants, and reservations of mineral or oil and gas rights from an old deed.

Some standard exceptions are removable. A current survey and the seller's affidavit customarily remove the survey and possession exceptions, which is one reason a survey is ordered early rather than late. What remains on Schedule B-II is, in plain terms, what you take title subject to — so read it before you sign, not after you own it.

Whether a particular exception matters for your plans — a utility easement where a pool is going, a setback that limits an addition, a covenant that restricts rentals — is a question for your attorney. The commitment tells you the matter exists; it does not tell you what to do about it, and neither do we.

The Commitment Date and the gap — Florida's rule

The search behind the commitment runs through the Commitment Date. Closing happens later, and the deed and mortgage are recorded later still. Anything recorded in between — a lien, a judgment, a second mortgage — lands in the gap. Florida answers this by statute: under § 627.7841, Fla. Stat., when the title insurer, through its agents, disburses the settlement or closing funds, it must insure against adverse matters recorded between the effective date of the commitment and the recording of the insured document, except matters the insured already knows about.

That is why the closing team updates the search right before closing and records promptly afterward: the gap is covered by law, and it is also kept as short as possible on purpose.

What to do with it

Our closing team walks through the commitment with every party who asks, and the Pre-Flight check on this site turns its requirements into questions you can answer at contract. The commitment is the insurer's offer in writing; reading it is the cheapest due diligence in the transaction.

• Read it the day it arrives, not the week of closing.
• Check Schedule A against the contract: names, amount, legal description.
• Ask about every Part I requirement that names you, and what satisfies it.
• Ask which Part II exceptions a survey and affidavit can remove, and bring any that touch your plans to your attorney.
• Expect the policy to match the commitment. If the policy you receive after closing differs from it, ask why.