We tried to sell our house to realize we only own HALF the yard – how to avoid it happening to you
THE road to buying and selling a home can be a long one and it goes beyond a down payment and closing costs.
For a Pennsylvania couple, they were shocked to find out they didn't own all of their home.
Rebecca and Joseph O'Connor had a potential buyer for their two-bedroom home in Wallingford, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.
When the buyer's title company researched the property, it found the O'Connors home sits on two parcels of land.
Rebecca told The Philadelphia Inquirer: “I felt kind of hopeless for a while.
“Everything was falling into place and then just everything exploded out of nowhere.”
The O’Connors learned that in the mid-1960s, a previous owner bought one parcel, and then a couple of years later, he bought the second.
The prior owner never legally merged the two parcels.
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After he died, his wife sold the home in the 1980s to someone who then sold it to the O’Connors.
Neither buyer knew they had not purchased the rights to more than 500 square feet of yard.
Lance Rogers, a real estate attorney for the O'Connors said: “It doesn’t happen all that often, but when it does, it’s catastrophic."
For months, the O’Connors and their lawyer searched for the property’s heirs.
Their lawyer found the former owner’s three daughters, who did not know they have legal claim to the stray piece of property.
He’s asking them to yield their rights to it by signing a quitclaim corrective deed, which is a special type of deed used to fix problems in deeds that have already been recorded.
The O'Connors are waiting to hear if the other party agrees.
Meanwhile, the buyer of the O'Connors' home pulled out of the sale and the O'Connors lost the house they wanted to buy.
What is a title search?
A title search looks at public records to determine and confirm a property's legal ownership and to find out what claims or liens may be on the property.
A clean title is required for any real estate transaction to be completed.
A title search is usually performed by a title company or an attorney on behalf of a prospective buyer who may be interested in making an offer on the property.
Know your boundaries
A title search is sometimes not enough when buying or selling a home.
As the O'Connors found out, they technically don't own half of their front yard.
A property survey can accurately show a home's property lines.
Lenders and title companies often require property surveys before they'll approve your application for a mortgage or issue title insurance for the property.
You might also need to get a property survey before you begin construction on your land or to settle disputes with neighbors about property lines.
There are different types of surveys including:
- Boundary survey: This determines the perimeter of a property to establish exactly how much land is included within it and to ensure the title is accurate. It may also identify whether any neighboring properties have encroached upon the property as well as any easements, or areas where access to the property is shared by others.
- Elevation or floodplain survey: This shows the various elevations of the land to reveal how great the risk of flooding.
- Topographic survey: This type of survey identifies not only boundaries and man-made features of the land, such as buildings, but also natural features such as elevation, streams, lakes or hills.
The average cost of a land survey is $504, according to homeadvisor.com.
Read all the paperwork
Buying or selling a home may feel like you are signing your life away, but it is important to read and understand everything you are agreeing to in the contract.
Hiring an attorney is the only way to catch what the O'Connors found.
Not all states require a buyer or seller to have a real estate attorney at closing.
At least 18 states require an attorney prepare legal documents and/or be present at closing, according to homelight.com.
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