Do I Need Title Insurance for a Condominium Purchase?

By Marc Shaw

While purchasing a condominium is similar to purchasing a single-family home in many ways, it’s also very different. When you buy a home, you own the building itself and the land it sits on; when you purchase a condo, you only own the space inside the unit. This could lead you to believe that you don’t need title insurance for a condo purchase, but nothing could be further from the truth. World Wide Land Transfer is here to tell you why you still need an owner’s title insurance policy when buying a condo, even if you don’t own the building or the land itself. Find the perfect title insurance company in PA and other areas for you.  

Why Do You Need Title Insurance for a Condominium?

A standard owner’s title insurance policy will cover you for a range of title defects that could affect you as a single-family homeowner. These include unknown heirs, undiscovered liens, and fraud in the chain of title. You can also add endorsements that protect you from less common situations, like property line disputes and encroachments. While some of these title defects don’t apply to condominiums, some do, and they could cost you as a condo owner.

A standard owner’s title insurance policy can protect a condominium owner from incurring financial losses due to any of the following title defects:

– Missing or improperly filed documents in the chain of title

– Fraud or forgery

– Unpaid liens

You can also choose to add standard endorsement 4.1, which covers a range of situations specific to condo owners. These include:

– Losses suffered as a result of non-compliance with applicable condominium laws and regulations

– Failure to remove improvements caused by encroachments by other units or the condo’s common elements

– Failure of title resulting from a right of first refusal

– Loss or damage resulting from the unit not being entitled by law to be assessed as a separate tax parcel

Without an owner’s title insurance policy in place, you could be financially responsible for paying for the correction of any of these condo title defects, and it may not be cheap to resolve them. That’s why it makes sense to get an owner’s title insurance policy for your condo.

The team at World Wide Land Transfer will also be happy to speak with you about the kind of title defects that can affect condominium owners and help you find an affordable owner’s title insurance policy that works for you. As a full-service title insurance company with 20 years of experience, we have worked with a range of clients, including home buyers, home sellers, lenders, and even condominium buyers. Contact us today for any assistance you need with title insurance for your condominium or any other type of property.

World Wide Land Transfer is a service-oriented PA title company with offices in Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, D.C. With a record of going above and beyond, we are trusted to close everything from complex commercial transactions to residential refinance and purchase transactions.