Title search

A title search is the systematic examination of the recorded record for a property: the chain of deeds establishing ownership, the open mortgages and liens encumbering it, the easements, covenants, and declarations running with it, and the judgments and notices touching its parties. Searches precede closings, and their findings — the exceptions — are what the deal must clear or accept.

The search is where the record's fictions get tested: gaps in the chain, unsatisfied mortgages, surprise declarations from a prior owner's air-rights deal. For analysis short of a transaction, the same reading in lighter form — what does the recorded trail actually show? — is the difference between assuming a lot's rights and knowing what has already been done with them.