What we actually search
- The chain of title: every recorded transfer of ownership, looking for gaps, mis-indexed deeds, and defective legal descriptions
- Open mortgages and assignments — including old loans that were paid off but never released of record
- Judgments and liens against current and former owners, which can attach to the property
- Federal and state tax liens, code enforcement liens, and special assessments
- Probate and divorce proceedings that touched the ownership
- Easements, restrictions, and covenants that limit how the property can be used
- Property tax status and outstanding balances
Examination is where judgment enters
A search produces documents; an examination produces conclusions. Our examiners work under attorney supervision, which changes what happens when the record is ambiguous — a deed signed by one spouse on homestead property, a personal representative's deed without visible probate authority, an old mortgage with no satisfaction. Instead of shrugging those items into the commitment as exceptions for you to discover later, we classify them: clear, curable before closing, or a legal problem that needs counsel.
That classification, done in the first days of the file rather than the last, is the single biggest schedule-saver in a South Florida closing.
What a title search does not catch — and what we add
The county's official records will not tell you about an open building permit, an unrecorded code violation running up daily fines, or a utility balance that the city will happily attach to the new owner. Those live in municipal systems, which is why we pair searches with a municipal lien search and, for association properties, an estoppel letter from the HOA or condo association. Skipping those to save a few hundred dollars is how buyers inherit five-figure problems.