A property title search offers you two important protections when you buy a home and the land on which it is built. The first is the assurance that the person selling you the home is the legal owner of the property and has the right to sell it to you. This helps guarantee you will become the legal owner of the property when the sale closes. A title search also helps protect you from becoming a victim of fraud, which can happen when a person who does not own the house pretends to be the seller in an attempt to cheat you out of your money.
The second protection is the assurance there are no liens or claims against the property. For example, taxing authorities may place a lien against a home if the homeowner does not pay their property taxes. This is important to understand because liens are associated with the property and not the person whose debts are the cause of the lien. In other words, when you buy a home with a lien against it, you are also buying that lien and become responsible for paying it.