Title to a property is a legal term which means ‘ownership right to a property’. Title Due Diligence is conducted mainly to verify the ownership of title over the property and any encumbrances over the property, so as to protect one against pre-existing claims over the property. Such claims could either affect the ability of the transferor to transfer the property or could attach themselves to the property even after it is transferred.
In order to trace title to a property, it is pertinent to examine the relevant title documents relating to such property and the information as reflected in such title documents need to be corroborated by the relevant revenue records maintained by the government / statutory authority/ies.
The extent and type of due diligence to be undertaken by the purchaser's lawyer will depend on the following:
In case of a prospective purchase, a lease of the property, or real estate financing, a title search is performed primarily to verify whether:
In order to conduct a title search/ title verification, the following aspects would require to be examined: