Posted by Kristine-CA on April 30, 2005 at 21:11:42:
Did you have a title company you can call and ask this question? I
never go without title insurance for this very reason.
I had one deal that I bought with quit claim deeds and then on the re-
sale a judgement showed up against the house. The person who the
lien was against was NEVER in the title chain, but they had signed a
doc regarding Medi-CAL debts of the deceased owner. Neither the
owner’s name nor the estate were named in the doc. However, the
legal desc. was included in the lien and showed up in the title search
(not the prelim, I might add). The title company and I were in
agreement that the person who signed the doc had no legal interest in
the property. However, since that legal desc. was there on the lien,
they were not going to issue title insurance unless it was released. (I
managed that…long story.)
Since you and I can’t search by legal desc. or APN and title companies
apparently can in some cases, it seems pretty important to buy title
insurance or find out what your particular title company wants in order
to insure.
The title company will look at ALL docs when it comes to a common
name. If you give them John M. Smith. They will look at all docs for
John Smith. And sometimes variant spellings. That’s why the
statement of personal information is so important. Without soc. sec
numbers and past addresses, etc. they will not eliminate judgements
that affect title.
When some folks come from other countries, they change names. And some folks change names, not only when they came, but later time for the reason such as easier to say or easier to be remembered.
When title companies do their title work, how do they connect those different names together? In some cases, those are very different names. Do they have a system to tie names based on SSN or something?
Also as an investor, how do you find out what name was used by an indivisual?
A person who takes a property in a certain name, in most cases, can only take out loans against the property in that same name. No matter what he/she changes his/her name to. For example, if Olufemi Mbaza comes here from Ghana and calls himself (but doesn’t legally change his name to) Peter Mbaza, he has to show government issued id in his legal name of Olufemi when he buys the house. Loans he takes out against the house will have to be under the name Olufemi Mbaza since that’s what is on the deed. So it really shouldn’t be a problem for the title companies.
Skip traces will usually pull aliases. Check the archives for a skip trace.
Maybe I wasn?t clear what I meant by changing names. These changes I was referring to was formal change approved by the court. So naturally they do have valid ID for it.
I?m also mostly concerned about judgements.
Say this person?s name was A. Then he changes formally to B. He buys the house, so trust deed and deed shows B as his name. Later he changes his name formally again to C. And he get judgement against him by C.
If I do title search at the recorder?s office using B because that was on the deed, than I might miss the judgement he got as C. (Wait, in this case, is the judgment attached to this property?)
One time I noticed that when the title company did their search, they picked up more judgements than my own search at the recorder. This wasn?t the name change case, it was about middle name/middle initial. I think I only knew the middle initial, which was used on the deed. But the title company picked up from somewhere the whole middle name. This gave me the idea they have ?something? to cross reference names than lay person. I dunno.
Re: Title and Name Changes - Posted by David Krulac
Posted by David Krulac on May 01, 2005 at 12:18:31:
I ran into a woman who had 4 different last names, one maiden name and 3 other names of ex-husbands. It happens all the time, many times a somebody gets a divorced or married. Another woman that i ran into got divorced from #3 and ended up take the name back of #1 ex-husband.
As Kristine says, this is what title companies and title insurance is for. If there is any question the seller will be asked to sign an affadavit saying that such and such are the only names that they have ever gone by and that they have no other outsranding debt on the property.