Video Transcript:
Hello, this is Dave at TitleSearch.com. In this video we're going to talk about what items and what elements you'll find on a property deed. There are dozens of different pieces of information on a property deed, and each one of them may be important or valuable to you as either an investor, or a buyer, or just a researcher on a title. First thing is to understand is make sure you're getting the actual property deed. Here's what a deed looks like. We'll get into it in a minute. If you're using electronic or online records, this is all you're going to get. It's one line. You can see it right here. One line that has basically three, maybe four, pieces of information. Electronic records are really no good. They're not the official records. A property deed is going to have a whole bunch of information. Let's go through them one at a time. It'll first have the grantor, which is the legal name for the party that's granting away property rights. If you're the seller, typically on a deed you'll be the grantor. You're granting property rights to the buyer. The buyer, in turn, is called the grantee. They are receiving the property rights. The exchange of those property rights are exchange for what's known as the consideration. In layman's terms, that's what is the price of the property. So if you're buying a property for $100,000, the consideration is $100,000. It may be referenced on the deed in other ways. It may say amount -it may say in exchange for good and valuable consideration -because a real estate transaction has to be for consideration for it to be valid in most cases. You can check with an attorney on that. It also will have two dates. It'll have an executed date, and it will have a recording date. What that means is, on this deed you'll find on the last page there are signatures. These signatures were signed by the sellers and other parties on the date this deed was executed. The date that the deed was recorded in the official records may be a different date; may be signed in a closing today, may be brought down for recording tomorrow or the next day. So both of those dates are shown on the deed. It's important to know that because the date of recording may have some significance in priority and other property rights. So take a look at both those dates. If there's a significant difference between the two, there may be a reason or may have some significance in terms of why that deed was sitting on someone's desk and not recorded for a week or a month. We've seen up to a year where a deed isn't recorded. There may have been some reason for that. Next to that recording date you'll see a barcode. Most counties will put a barcode. Once they receive it, they stamp it received. That barcode will show it's an official record at that point in the county or in that recording venue. Like I said, last page will have signatures. It'll have signatures of the seller. It'll have signatures of the borrower if it's a mortgage. It'll also have witnesses and notaries. A real estate transaction, a real estate document, has to have witnesses and a notary to evidence that that person actually signed the deed. It's important to look at who those witnesses are. Were they friends? Relatives? Were the notaries local? Was this deed signed in another area? That might be important to know. If the property was sold, let's say, in Texas, but the deed was signed in Ohio, it may have been that the owner is an absentee owner or it was sold somewhere else. Also see if the signature is a power of attorney. Did the seller execute a power of attorney for somebody else to sign on their behalf? That's an interesting piece of information in some cases. The document, once it's recorded, it goes into a book. There's a deed book in the land records office that will hold this document. It goes into a page, and there's a book and page reference given on this deed. In this case, it's 091-025. So it's Book 91, Page 25. If you go into land records office, you can pull Book 91 off the shelf, flip to Page 25... Guess what? There's your deed. That's exactly where it's going to be. And that way you can find that reference. What might be interesting is to look what's right after it. Was there another deed recorded the next page that has to do with this property? Is there one before it? Are they similar parties? Knowing where that page number is can be helpful sometimes. There's also a send-to block. You see at the very top, it says, once this deed is recorded and a copy goes into the book, where does the original go back to? It usually goes back to the title company; it might be an attorney, it might be the seller, it might be the buyer. It's interesting to know where that send to block is. A lot of times it is a title company and it has their reference number. There may be a file number. There may be a mortgage number. There may be some other number that references the rest of that file. Most importantly, on a deed, there is the legal description. That tells you which property it is. The legal description is usually a long paragraph of text that will tell you which property is being referenced. And that's important to make sure that the correct property is being considered. There may be terms and conditions. For example, on this deed, it says that this property is free from liens except -and it lists out other things that aren't covered. It's a warranty deed, so the seller is warranting that it's a good transaction, it's a clear title, except they have some exceptions to what they're guaranteeing. So just because you know a deed was transferred, you may not know that there were some exceptions made on that transfer. That's why if you just get an electronic database search, you're not going to know about those exceptions and how valid was that deed. In some cases those terms and conditions will also spell out some cross-references. It'll say something like, see deed number so-and-so, see document number 1234. In this case, there is a reference to a definition of forestry practices in section number 30.930. So there's a reference to another statute or other information that's important to know. Again, looking at the deed and reading through all the terms and conditions will help you know what all those details are. Last but not least, look for notations. You may not be able to see it on the video, but in this deed, up in the top, there's some handwritten notations. Those are probably added as the property is being closed at the title company. Somebody put down some notes. It may not be important, but if there's litigation at a later date or something else needed, those might be things that come up that could help you. If you need more information about property deeds, or any type of property or title documents, you can reach us on our website at TitlSearch.com.