While both a title and lien search are terms to describe the research performed on a property, each one is conducted for a different reason. It is worth noting up front that the terms themselves: “title search” and “lien search” are general terms and are largely interchangeable with terms such as “lien letters”, “municipal lien search”, “title commitment”, and several others. For the purposes of this article we will stick to the common terms: title search and lien search.

A title search is when someone, typically a title examiner, pulls from official public records and other indexes of public records all documents that reference a subject property in a real estate transaction as well as the names of parties involved int he transaction. The examiner then looks to confirm whether these documents are still impacting the property or attached to the property or if a subsequent document may have eliminated its younger counter-part. Some confusion enters here because if there is something that is impacting the title negatively we refer to that as a lien.

And so enters the lien search, which is a common reference to the search conducted at the municipal or county level for those items that may impact the property negatively but that might not be in the official public records. Some examples of this would be a building or code violation, open or expired permits, outstanding utility balances and past due taxes. These items at their early stages are often times just referenced locally by a municipality or the county but haven’t existed long enough or potentially don’t qualify to become official liens on a property. This being said often times these items are not official defects in title, but will nonetheless be something that a Buyer would want resolved prior to closing.

It is important that you request your title company perform both a title and lien search so that the parties to the closing have a clear picture of all items that could impact title and those items that might not impact title but would be a costly expense for a party to resolve post-closing.