Title on an assigned deal, and what can go wrong

Off-market means more title work, not less

The houses that come to you off-market are disproportionately the ones with something going on: an estate, a divorce, years of deferred everything, an owner who has not been to the courthouse in a decade. That is why they are cheap, and it is why title is the part of the process most worth your attention.

What the search actually turns up

Mortgages and liens, obviously. Judgment liens against the owner, which attach to the property and follow it. Unpaid property taxes and municipal charges. Mechanic's liens from work that was never paid for. Easements. And on estate property, the question of whether the person signing has the authority to sign at all.

Fixable before closing

Most of it. Liens and taxes come off the seller's proceeds at closing, which is what the settlement statement is for. A missing release for a paid-off mortgage can usually be chased. A small boundary encroachment can often be insured over. None of these needs to kill a deal as long as the numbers still work once they come out of the proceeds.

Not fixable in your timeline

An estate that has not been through probate and needs to be. A missing heir who has to be found and has not been. A break in the chain of title from decades ago. A quiet title action. These are all solvable and none of them is solvable in the two weeks before your closing date, which for your purposes makes them the same thing as unsolvable.

Buy the owner's policy

On a cash purchase nobody makes you buy title insurance, because there is no lender demanding it. Buy it anyway. It is a one-time premium against the exact category of risk these houses carry, and the first time it pays out it pays for every policy you have ever bought.

Order the search early

The cheapest thing you can do to protect a deal is open title the day you go under contract rather than the week before closing. Most of what a search turns up is fixable, and every fix takes time. Finding a judgment lien with three weeks to go is an administrative task. Finding the same lien with three days to go is a lost deposit and a seller who now has to be renegotiated.

Who is actually on the deed

On off-market houses the answer is regularly not the person you have been talking to. A deceased parent whose estate was never opened, an ex-spouse who was never removed, a sibling who inherited a share nobody mentioned. None of that is fatal on its own, but each one adds a signature you need and a person who has to agree. Ask early who is on the deed and whether all of them know the house is being sold.

Municipal charges follow the house

Unpaid water and sewer, code enforcement fines, demolition liens: these attach to the property rather than the owner, and in some cities they do not sit in the county records a standard search looks at. Ask the title company to pull municipal charges specifically. On a cheap house in an older city this is regularly the largest surprise on the settlement statement.