If it’s your first time purchasing a property through either a county tax deed sale or tax lien sale, you may be wondering what the next steps are. In most cases, the logical next step is to obtain title insurance. While this may sound simple enough, the process can be different depending on the method you choose for acquiring it.

To understand how long it takes to get title insurance, you’ll need to first understand the options available and how they work.

Title Insurance Through Quiet Title

Before you can obtain title insurance, you need to prove that you are the sole owner of the property. This means you’ll need to provide a clear title to the insurance underwriter for consideration. The most common way to obtain title insurance when you have a clouded title is by filing an action to quiet title through the court system. In many cases, when you purchase a property at a county auction for delinquent taxes, the title will have significant blemishes that could financially impact you in the future. Particularly with tax deed properties, pre-existing liens can be inherited through your property purchase. While these debts aren’t technically yours, you will still be financially responsible for them unless you can clear the title.

You can file an action to quiet title in order to get these liens removed from your title and avoid further financial obligation. In order to file such a suit, you must request a decree from the local court of jurisdiction. To do this, you’ll need to provide evidence of ownership in the form of the property title. You’ll need to prove that you purchased the property in good faith without pre-existing knowledge of clouds over the title (other interested parties or undisclosed, pre-existing liens). Doing so requires a court appearance, thousands of dollars in legal fees, and can take 6+ months to resolve. In some cases, the process can take well over a year to complete.

Title Certification for Obtaining Title Insurance

An alternative method for obtaining title insurance for a property obtained through a tax lien sale or tax deed sale is by obtaining a Due Process Certification from Tax Title Services. Through this process, TTS will verify the completeness and accuracy of the tax foreclosure due process to ensure no clerical errors were made. Once verified, the consultant will connect you to a partner title insurance agent to protect your assets from further legal or financial responsibilities.

The TTS Due Process Certification can take fewer than four weeks (in some states), and typically won’t take longer than 6 weeks to complete. When you choose the route of certification, you’ll pay a flat fee that’s much less expensive than thousands of dollars in legal fees you’d pay by filing an action to quiet title. With this method, you could have title insurance for your property in as little as four weeks, saving thousands of dollars  in states with the highest quiet title fees.

Getting Title Insurance for Your Property

The fastest and most cost effective route to obtain title insurance for your tax deed investment is with the Due Process Certification from Tax Title Services. We’ll verify that the tax lien foreclosure due process was handled correctly, thoroughly checking for clouds in your title that may impact you in the future. Once certified, we’ll partner you with a title insurance underwriter to give you added protection over your assets for years to come.