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Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #42-04: Mark Cowgill: Importance of how your home is titled

March 17, 2018


Welcome back to Ready Set Sold I’m your host Bryan Vogt. Thanks so much for joining us I’m really excited to have our next guest on and that is Mark Cowgill of community title I think I said your last thing right correct it’s it you know kögel Cowgill I’ll take just fighting I can get how about that okay somewhere between googling calculus how it’s supposed to know Gil so that’s my mistake I apologize that’s that’s okay believe me you’re not the first nor the last that’s alright that’s not a problem fair enough.
Here we have mark with us today talking about title and oftentimes title is kind of the last thing that people think about but in reality is it’s the final stage it’s the critical part this is where the buyers and sellers meet this is where they exchange money keys everything so it’s a it’s a very critical part and if that doesn’t go right well things can happen and mark you want to talk today about some things that maybe can come up or have came up and the solution to solve them absolutely one of the one of the terms that we use in title insurance and in real estate is how people hold title to real estate and that is important.
Not only when somebody buys a piece of property that that’s done correctly but more importantly when somebody sells a piece of property if it wasn’t done correctly when they bought it can cause a problem down the road that when they when they go to sell and so briefly let me let me explain to you that there are three types of ways individuals can hold title to property I won’t bore you with this but it’s important that we have a little bit of separation on those types the when I want a husband a wife or two people or whatever buy a piece of property they have three options.
The most common one today is what’s called joint tenancy we hear that term we’re not sure what it means but joint tenancy is that in which two people own a piece of property as joint tenants with the right of survivorship and that’s the key there because what that means is if something happens to one of the parties the other entity gets their interests so let’s say a husband and wife on a piece of property is joint tenants one of them passes away the surviving spouse gets that interest to the property and it is their property to do with what they what they want they can sell the property the way they have it but there’s another way that is called tenants by the entirety.
Now that is available to two married couples and it’s only on the property in which they call their principle residents that is that has the same connotation as joint tenants meaning that if something happens to one of them the other party takes title to the property great same as joint tenants okay but the tenancy by the entirety also adds to it a little protection for each of the people if one of the parties is involved in litigation and gets sued and loses there loses a case that that judgment that’s a great granted against them can attach to the real property they own if your own title is tensed by the entirety only the party who was sued only their half of the property can get attached to not the other half so it’s a little bit of a protection in case it used to be used for doctors and lawyers and malpractice type things.
Now it’s a common place for everybody because in this society we live in where you can get sued for anything not a bad idea to protect yourself remember tenancy by the entirety though is only for a married couple who are living in the residence okay if it’s if that’s not the case your other option is joint tenancy now the third way to hold title and I’ll see the way that leads to the problems we have is when somebody when two people hold title as tenants in common so real quick we’ve got joint tenants by the entirety and tenancy in common tenancy in common is the one that is probably used least of all but is appropriate for some situations let’s say two people are buying a piece of property and it’s investment property and they want to buy it and they want to make money from it but they’re not married they’re not intending together.
It’s an investment not a not a home you might choose to do tenancy by the intendancy in common because the difference is if something happens to one of the parties that person interest that person’s interest does not automatically go to the other person it goes to whoever they may denote in their will and an estate planning thing you know it may be it may be two guys who run a remodeling business who buy and sell property well they’re buying it but if I pass away I don’t want my business partner getting it I want my family getting it so that’s why tenancy in common is useful and it’s used many times in those situations not so much for husband and wife now that leads to the problem that we see more often than we should we will find a person who owns property who’s owned this property for 30 years whose husband passed away five years ago and now the widow wants to sell a piece of property.
And when we do this title search we find out that when they bought the property 30 years ago 40 years ago 20 years ago they took title as tenants in tenants in common and didn’t know that they weren’t aware of that so what happens is we have to be the bearer of bad news and say mrs. seller you don’t own this property by yourself your deceased husband’s heirs owned it as well and that sometimes is not a problem we don’t see it often but believe me once a month or once every other month is more than enough to really upset a seller who’s owned the property for 30 years and now we’re telling them we got to get somebody else a signature that’s the crux of my comments today is make sure you know how you take title so that when you sell the property you’re good to go that’s the key.
Awesome stuff we’re running out of time but great information I think the key factor there is getting ahead of the game making sure you’re getting that title work there is a question you don’t know in advance so that the title company like your community title can take care of that situation and that way to the very end or sometimes it happens hey Mark you’re absolutely right it’s Robyn we can fix we just need time that’s exactly right that’s right there you go I love that thank you so much for being on the show today I think it was great information we have to run we’re literally out of time you’re listening to Ready Set Sold with your host Bryan Vogt.

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