Don't Get Caught - Perform a Title Search Before Buying a Jamaican Property For Sale

Interested in buying a particular Jamaican property for sale? Before you make a bid at an auction, negotiate a price, or hand over any money, don’t forget to complete a title search.

The importance of completing Title Searches?

Sometimes the person who’s trying to sell the property is in fact not the legal property owner or the sole legal property owner. In other cases, the property owner wants to hide pertinent information so that they can close the deal as quickly as possible (e.g., they may not have completed the payment of their mortgage). It is also possible that the property owner themselves aren’t even aware of issues with the title.

If you pay in cash without getting a title search done, you may not have any issues until you try to sell the property

Going through a Certificate of Title will allow you to do a number of things including the following:

1. Confirm the name of the rightful property owner, to ensure that the seller is legally entitled to sell the property.
2. Reveal any existing encumbrances (e.g., easements, mortgages, liens, restrictive covenants, and caveats) that you ought to take into consideration, and which may, from your point of view, lower the price you’re willing to pay for the property.
3. Corroborate the size of the land itself.
4. Identify the history of the property and chain of ownership, from the current owner and all the way back to the original owner of the property, showing in each instance the details of how long it was owned and the purchase price paid.

Bear this in mind, if you pay in cash without getting a title search done, you may not have any issues until you try to sell the property when a buyer determines that there’s still a lien on the estate. You and not the previous owner will be the one required to pay off the lien in order to clear the title before you can sell.

The cost of Getting a Title Report

A Title Report from the National Land Agency currently costs only $500, so the price is a drop in the bucket in comparison to the money you could lose if you don’t take this step as a precaution. Today, you don’t even have to go in person to the National Land Agency. You can try out their online platform. You may be pleasantly surprised.

How to Confirm Property Details

Need to confirm the valuation number, or volume and folio number? Here’s our YouTube video on how to search iMap Jamaica using these details. It is hosted by the National Land Agency, Jamaica.

A Title Report from the National Land Agency currently costs only $500 ... a drop in the bucket in comparison to the money you could lose

If you’re uncertain as to how to uncover irregularities, hire a lawyer. It’s worth it. Too much can go bad.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute real estate advice. For more real estate related articles and news, check us out at Nohuts.com.