Is your title ready? Heirs, divorce, liens and solar panels
Draft Pending review by a Texas title professional before it is final.
Title problems are the slowest part of most sales, and a title company finds them only once you're under contract — unless you look first. These are the questions a Texas title company will ask.
Updated
Whose names are on the deed
Everyone whose name is on the deed signs to sell. If the owner is a company or a trust, the person signing needs papers that show they can: for a company, its records and a resolution authorizing the sale; for a trust, a certificate of trust. If a name on the deed is spelled differently from how that person signs today, the title company may ask for an affidavit that they are one and the same.
Your spouse and a homestead
In Texas, if the home is your homestead and you are married, your spouse signs to sell it even when their name isn’t on the deed (Tex. Fam. Code §5.001). A title company will ask about marriage for that reason.
When an owner has died
If someone on the deed has died, the sale usually needs either a probate case or a recorded affidavit of heirship that the title company accepts, and the heirs may all need to sign. The title company decides what it needs to insure the sale. This is the slowest fix of all — often weeks, sometimes months — so it pays to start before you list.
After a divorce
If you divorced after you bought the home, the decree needs to award you the home, and the title company may ask for a deed from your former spouse or other papers from the case. Find the decree now.
Loans and liens
- Your mortgage is paid off at closing from the sale money: the title company orders the payoff from your lender.
- A home-equity line of credit has to be closed or frozen so nothing more can be drawn on it. Tell your lender early.
- Unpaid property taxes are a lien on the home and come out of your proceeds at closing, as do unpaid HOA dues.
- Judgments, IRS liens and child-support liens against anyone on the deed show up in the title search and are paid from the proceeds, or released, before the rest comes to you.
Solar panels
Solar panels you own outright are simply part of the home. Financed or leased panels usually come with a filing on the property that the title company will find. Plan either to pay off the loan at closing or to transfer the lease or the loan to the buyer — which usually needs the solar company’s approval and the buyer’s agreement, and takes time.
Other things the title search turns up
- Recent work that isn’t paid for. Unpaid contractors can file liens. At closing you sign a statement that the bills are paid.
- Shared driveways, fence-line disagreements, agreements with neighbors that were never recorded. The title company may need affidavits, and the buyer will want to know.
- A property-assessed clean energy (PACE) loan attaches to the property and has to be handled before or at closing.
- The survey. Having your existing survey ready can save time and money: the survey and the T-47.
Start with a title company
A title company can search the title before you list, and tell you ahead of time what it will need to close. The earlier a problem is found, the less it costs the sale.
When you build a listing on ListedBy, its title-readiness check asks these questions and sorts what to call a title company about, slowest first. ListedBy never recommends a particular title company: the choice is yours and the buyer’s.