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Here’s a question nobody at the closing table wants you to ask:

“Why am I paying for a title search when this property sold 18 months ago?”

The closing attorney will look uncomfortable.

The title company rep will suddenly need to “review the file.”

Your real estate agent will kick you under the table.

Because the honest answer is:

“You probably shouldn’t be.”

Title insurance protects you from ownership disputes, liens, and claims against your property. It’s essential.

What’s not essential is paying to rediscover the same facts someone else already paid to discover—recently.

Title insurance is one of the few things you buy where the seller did all the research 2–3 years ago…and you’re charged to do it again, cover to cover, as if none of it ever happened.

Imagine hiring a home inspector, getting a 40-page report, then selling the house 18 months later.

The new buyer hires another inspector, who produces the same 40-page report, because nothing has changed.

We’d call that wasteful.

At a minimum, we’d ask a follow-up question.

Yet at closing, nobody blinks—because closing costs are a fog of line items, and everyone just wants the keys and a working pen.

In 41 states, you can request a title update (also called a bring-down or reissue rate) instead of a full title search.

What you’re really saying to the title company is:

A full title search typically costs $800–$1,200.

A title update usually runs $150–$300.

Coverage: identical.

The title company confirms the prior policy is valid, searches the public record from the last sale date forward, verifies no new liens or claims appeared, and issues your policy.

Same protection.

Less redundant work.

A much smaller bill.

This typically works if the property sold within the last three years.

The prior title policy must be from a reputable underwriter—Fidelity, First American, Stewart, Old Republic, Chicago Title. If the seller closed with Bob’s Title Shack and Bait Shop, you’re getting a full search.

This applies to primary residences, investment properties, and even commercial buildings. The exact window varies by state, but some version of this is available in most of the country.

If the property was inherited, gifted, or transferred outside a normal arms-length sale, you want the full search.

Same goes for foreclosures, bankruptcies, divorces, quitclaim deeds, and tax sales. Those situations create exactly the kind of title issues full searches are meant to catch—and that’s money well spent.

Once you’re under contract, say this—calmly and clearly:

You’ll get one of two responses:

If it’s the second, find a different title company. This isn’t exotic. It’s standard practice—it just happens to benefit you instead of their invoice.

Ask for the prior policy number and underwriter. If the seller doesn’t have it, it’s in the county records. Any competent title company can locate it in minutes.

Buy five properties this year in the same market and title updates can save you $3,000–$4,500.

That’s not rounding error.

That’s real money.

And over a decade of active investing, it compounds into something meaningful.

As the old line goes, “Measure twice, cut once.”

But measuring the same board over and over doesn’t make the cut any cleaner.

In other words:

Let’s stop paying for MRIs when a pulse check will do.

Not all states play nicely with the “title update vs full search” shortcut. In a handful of places, customary practice or statute drives title companies to roll the clock back decades — sometimes far longer than a simple three-year window — and that makes the cheap update all but unavailable.

A few examples of states where long historical searches are the norm (or where a short bring-down is hard to obtain because of entrenched underwriting practice or minimum search requirements) include:

That isn’t an exhaustive list of all situations where a title update might be unavailable, because underwriting custom, attorney practice, and local market norms vary widely — but it gives you a sense of the states where the default is deeper historical digging rather than a quick reissue credit.

So what can you do?

To put it bluntly:

Suck it up, buttercup.

In states like these, the local legal and underwriting frameworks make big historical searches the default. There isn’t a magical workaround.

Your practical choices are:

The reality is this: in most of the country a title update will save you money when the previous sale is recent. In a few markets — where law, underwriting custom, or attorney practice demand deep historical searches — the savings opportunity simply doesn’t exist yet.

Plan around it. And keep your eyes open for the places where due diligence doesn’t have to be redundant — that’s where you’ll win the quiet competitions no one else is paying attention to.

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