Title Search on an Investment Property: Liens

A title search on an investment property is a search of public records, not a look at the building. This is for the investor buying a business-purpose residential deal, the party who signs the note. The subject is the record: who owned the parcel, what is filed against it, who else holds a claim.

Title insurance companies estimate that 36% of transactions require a substantial amount of curative work to clear title, and 62% address at least four curative issues per transaction (ALTA, 2024).

A deal rarely dies on the offer or on the arithmetic. It dies late, when the record turns up a claim that attaches to the property instead of to a seller you will never see again.

> Key Takeaways

> - ALTA estimates 36% of transactions need substantial curative work, and 62% of companies address four or more curative issues per file (ALTA, 2024).

> - Most recorded claims run with the parcel, not with the person you bought it from.

> - A mechanic's lien window runs from the work, not from the sale, so a clean search on purchase day does not end it.

> - Schedule B-I is homework. Schedule B-II is permanent. Read B-II first.

> - Eos Loan is a direct lender with flexible terms, subject to approval and eligibility.

See how business-purpose financing fits your deal

What does a title search actually turn up on an investment property?

Everything recorded against the parcel and against the people in its ownership history. It is heavier than most investors expect. In 2026, ALTA's survey of 449 title professionals across 47 states found that 61% of purchase transactions require reviewing up to 50 historical documents to resolve ownership questions (ALTA, Measuring the Complexity of Title Production, March 2026).

The examiner pulls the chain of ownership, recorded loans and whether each was released, tax and assessment records, court records for judgments, recorded easements and covenants, and municipal or code claims. In that same study, 24.2% of respondents named ownership and loan documents the hardest category to review, easements close behind at 23.6%.

What a search cannot see matters just as much. Unrecorded rights, an occupant with a claim nobody filed, a side agreement that never reached the county: none of it surfaces. The record is only a record of what somebody bothered to record.

It is also not a look at the physical property and not a valuation. The full guide to fix and flip financing covers what a lender evaluates on the deal itself, and our page for business-purpose financing for residential real estate projects covers the product side.

Which liens attach to the property instead of the seller?

Most of them. A lien recorded against real property runs with the property, which is why an unpaid claim against a stranger becomes your problem the day you take the deed. Property taxes alone are a live exposure: $396.8 billion was levied on more than 89.6 million single-family homes in 2025, an average bill of $4,427 (ATTOM, April 2026).

The useful distinction is not big claim versus small claim. It is whether the claim was filed against the parcel or against a person. A judgment is filed against a person, then reaches whatever real property that person owns. A tax lien is filed against the parcel. That difference changes how it clears.

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One row catches investors off guard more than the rest. A judgment against a common name is often not your seller at all, and it clears with an identity affidavit rather than a check.

This is general information, not tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional.

!Recorded property documents and a title commitment laid out on a desk in daylight during a records review.

Some of these show up early enough to walk away for free. The red flags that end a screen on sight covers which conditions break an exit rather than just change your offer.

Can a lien be filed after you already bought the property?

Yes, and this is the part most investors get wrong. Mechanic's lien windows run from last furnishing or completion of the work, not from the sale. Florida allows a claim of lien to be recorded "not later than 90 days after the final furnishing of the labor or services or materials by the lienor" (Fla. Stat. 713.08(5)).

California sets a different clock for a direct contractor: record before the earlier of 90 days after completion of the work of improvement, or 60 days after the owner records a notice of completion or cessation (Cal. Civ. Code 8412).

Read that against a real purchase. A crew was on the property six weeks before you signed. Nothing is recorded on the day the examiner searches, because nothing has been filed. The window is open, invisible, and running.

Sources: Fla. Stat. 713.08(5); Cal. Civ. Code 8412.

So ask the seller what work was performed in the last several months and by whom, get it in writing, and hand it to the title company. The underwriter can then require the right affidavits or price the exposure. That costs one email. Skipping it can cost a claim against a property you already own.

This is general information, not legal advice. Lien and priority rules vary by state.

Waivers from your own contractor on your own project are a separate problem, handled inside the draw process rather than in the record search. How lien waivers work inside a draw request covers that side.

!A single-family house partway through improvement work in daylight, the kind of property that can carry an open lien window.

What is a cloud on title, and what does it take to clear one?

A cloud is anything on the record that makes ownership less than certain, and removing one is labor, not paperwork. ALTA found that difficult files take 2.1 times longer, averaging 45.4 hours of work against roughly 22 hours for a standard file, with a 30-hour median (ALTA, 2024).

The causes repeat. A gap in the chain. A release that was never recorded on a loan that was actually paid. An heir or a former spouse who never signed. A legal description that does not match the parcel. A boundary or easement conflict. An unresolved probate. A deed with a bad acknowledgment.

Source: ALTA, "Title Insurance Curative Work Study," 2024.

There are two exits. Curative work by the title company, which is the ordinary path, or a court action to quiet title when curative work fails. The second runs on a court calendar, and a court calendar does not care about your contract date. Distressed sellers add their own drag: properties foreclosed in the second quarter of 2026 had spent an average of 563 days in the process (ATTOM, July 2026).

Here is the pattern I see in files. The title problems that stop a deal late are almost never exotic. They are a release that was never recorded on a loan paid off years ago, and an heir nobody can locate. Both are solvable, and both take weeks the schedule did not have. Ordering the search on day one instead of day twenty is the cheapest move an investor has here.

Ask about flexible terms for fix and flip projects

How do you read a title commitment without missing the part that matters?

Read it as two lists that do opposite things. Nearly 60% of ALTA respondents reported removing three to five requirements or exceptions from the commitment in order to fund a transaction, and more than 20% cleared six or more (ALTA, 2024). Investors read the document as one blob. It is not one blob.

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| Schedule A | Who is insured, for how much, what estate, and the legal description | The facts the policy is built on | Check the description against what you walked, and the named insured against your entity |

| Schedule B-I, requirements | The to-do list before a policy issues | Solvable: payoff and release of the seller's recorded loan, a death certificate, a corrected description, a missing signature | Assign each item to a named party with a date, and ask who is chasing the hard ones |

| Schedule B-II, exceptions | What the policy will not cover once it issues | Permanent: an easement of record, a boundary question, rights of parties in possession, a claim the underwriter declines | Read this first, ask which exceptions can be removed or insured over by endorsement, before money moves |

Call it the Schedule B split. Requirements are homework, and homework gets done. Exceptions are the shape of the coverage you are actually buying, and they outlive the transaction. An investor who clears every B-I item and never opens B-II can fund a deal and still be uninsured for the exact defect that blocks the resale two quarters later.

Schedule A deserves a minute of its own. A legal description that omits a strip, a shared driveway, or a lot line correction is how an investor buys 90% of what they walked. Check the named entity too, because the entity on the deed has to match the entity on the note, which is one reason the entity on the deed matters on business-purpose credit.

Where does title fraud show up on investor deals?

On the properties investors like most: vacant, unoccupied, and owned by someone who is not watching. ALTA found that 28% of title insurance companies experienced at least one seller impersonation fraud attempt in the prior year, and 19% faced an attempt in April 2024 alone (ALTA, May 2024).

Vacancy is the shared trait, and investor-owned stock skews that way. In the third quarter of 2026, 3.5% of investor-owned residential properties were vacant against a 1.3% national residential vacancy rate, more than double (ATTOM, August 2026).

Source: ATTOM, "Q3 2026 Vacancy and Zombie Foreclosure Report," August 2026.

ALTA's respondents named the recurring red flags: vacant land transactions, a request to use an unknown notary, and all-cash transactions. The workload is real, with 52% spending at least 11 hours a month on antifraud measures (ALTA, Measuring the Complexity of Title Production, March 2026).

Two habits do most of the work here. Verify wire instructions by calling a number you already had, never a number that arrived in the email carrying the instructions. And let the title company run identity verification on the seller instead of routing around it to save a day.

!A quiet daylight street of modest single-family houses with empty driveways, the kind of block where vacant properties draw fraud attempts.

What does a lender need cleared on title before it funds?

A lender is buying a position, not a promise. Before funding it generally needs a commitment naming the borrowing entity, the Schedule B-I requirements satisfied, a lender's policy at the loan amount, and the priority it agreed to underwrite. Eos Loan has originated $4B+ across 30k+ proposals processed, all subject to approval and eligibility.

Owner's policy and lender's policy are different products with different beneficiaries. The lender's policy protects the lender's position up to the loan amount and does nothing for your equity. If a defect surfaces after funding, it makes the lender whole and leaves you where you stood. An owner's policy is a separate decision, made by the investor for the investor, and a one-time cost paid at purchase.

That is why an unreleased prior loan, an open judgment, or an unresolved tax claim is a funding condition and not a formality. A lender funding behind an undisclosed senior claim has bought a worse position than the one it priced. Some exceptions can be addressed by endorsement, a conversation between your title company and its underwriter.

Eos Loan is a direct lender. We originate, underwrite and service our own credit, so you deal with the party making the decision. Business purpose only, never a consumer mortgage. Terms are flexible and sized to the project, and Eos Loan charges no dealer fee. What a business-purpose lender is actually looking at walks the rest of it, and who we are covers the company.

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Talk to our team about financing your next project

Or call +1 833-989-3737 to talk through a deal you have under contract now. More common financing questions are answered on our FAQ page.

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question: "What does a title search show on an investment property?",

answer: "Everything recorded against the parcel and against the people in its ownership history: the chain of ownership, recorded loans and their releases, tax and assessment records, judgments, easements and covenants, and municipal claims. ALTA reports 61% of purchase transactions require reviewing up to 50 historical documents (ALTA, March 2026). It does not look at the building and it does not value it."

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question: "Do liens stay with the property or with the seller?",

answer: "A lien recorded against real property generally runs with the property, which is why a seller's unpaid claim becomes the buyer's problem. Claims recorded against a person, such as a judgment, attach to real property that person owns. Priority rules vary by state. This is general information, not legal advice."

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question: "What is a cloud on title?",

answer: "Anything on the record that makes ownership less than certain: a gap in the chain, an unrecorded release on a loan that was paid, an heir who never signed, a defective legal description. ALTA found difficult files take 2.1 times longer, averaging 45.4 hours of labor against roughly 22 hours for a standard file (ALTA, 2024)."

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question: "Can a mechanic's lien be filed after I buy the property?",

answer: "Yes. The window runs from last furnishing or completion of the work, not from the sale. Florida allows recording up to 90 days after final furnishing (Fla. Stat. 713.08(5)). California requires a direct contractor to record before the earlier of 90 days after completion or 60 days after a recorded notice of completion (Cal. Civ. Code 8412). Rules vary by state."

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question: "Does Eos Loan finance business-purpose real estate projects?",

answer: "Yes. Eos Loan is a direct lender for business-purpose residential investment projects, including fix and flip, fix and keep and fix and hold, with flexible terms sized to the project and no dealer fee, subject to approval and eligibility."

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The record decides late, so read it early

Title is the part of a deal that behaves like plumbing. Nobody thinks about it until it fails, and it fails at the worst possible hour.

A title search is a search of public records, not a look at the property.

Most recorded claims attach to the parcel, not to the person you bought it from.
The mechanic's lien window runs from the work, so a clean search on purchase day does not end it.
Read Schedule B-II before Schedule B-I. Exceptions are permanent, requirements are homework.
The lender's policy protects the lender's position, not your equity.

Order the search the week you go under contract, read the exceptions first, and ask the seller what work was done recently. More financing guides for essential projects cover the rest of the capital stack.

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About the author: Eduardo Donadi is the CEO of Eos Loan, a US direct lender financing essential projects and business-purpose real estate projects including fix and flip, fix and keep and fix and hold. He works with investors on how deals get structured, sized and funded.

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Sources

1. American Land Title Association. "Title Insurance Curative Work Study." 2024. Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://www.alta.org/business-operations/research-initiatives-and-resources/critical-issue-studies/title-insurance-curative-work-study

2. American Land Title Association. "Measuring the Complexity of Title Production." March 2026. Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://www.alta.org/file/Measuring-the-Complexity-of-Title-Production.pdf

3. American Land Title Association. "Seller Impersonation Fraud Study." May 2024. Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://www.alta.org/business-operations/research-initiatives-and-resources/critical-issue-studies/seller-impersonation-fraud-study

4. ATTOM. "Q3 2026 Vacancy and Zombie Foreclosure Report." August 2026. Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/foreclosures/q3-2026-vacancy-and-zombie-foreclosure-report/

5. ATTOM. "2025 Property Tax Analysis." April 2026. Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/home-sales-prices/2025-annual-tax-report/

6. ATTOM. "Mid-Year 2026 US Foreclosure Market Report." July 2026. Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/foreclosures/2026-mid-year-foreclosure-market-report/

7. Florida Statutes 713.08(5). Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/713.08

8. California Civil Code 8412. Retrieved 2026-09-04. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=8412

Title Search and Liens: What Kills an Investor Deal Late