It is natural to assume that somewhere a list exists giving the owner of each house. In a recording jurisdiction that is not how it works. What exists is a public office holding recorded instruments, deeds, mortgages, liens, easements and judgements, indexed by name and by parcel, from which ownership has to be reconstructed by reading.
Why recording exists
The recording system solves one problem: making a private agreement about land visible to strangers. A deed signed and handed over transfers something between the two parties to it, but a third party who later deals with the same land has no way of knowing. Recording places the instrument in a public index, and the law then treats the world as having notice of it.
This is why the moment of recording, rather than the moment of signing, is the operative one in the purchase sequence, and why the order in which instruments are recorded determines their priority against each other.
The chain of title
A search works backwards from the present, linking each conveyance to the one that gave the conveyor its interest, until it reaches a point far enough back to be safe. Each link is checked for gaps: a grantor whose name does not match the previous grantee, an estate that passed by inheritance without a recorded instrument, an interest that was conveyed twice.
Alongside the conveyances sit the encumbrances. These are interests short of ownership that nonetheless attach to the parcel and, in most cases, survive a sale unless they are cleared as part of it.
What sits on a parcel
- Mortgage or deed of trust. A recorded security interest held by a lender, normally paid off and released as part of a sale.
- Lien. A claim recorded against the parcel for an unpaid obligation, whether tax, contractor's work or a judgement against a former owner.
- Easement. A right of use held by a utility, a neighbour or the public, which usually persists through any number of sales.
- Covenants and restrictions. Recorded rules limiting how the land may be used or built on, which run with the land rather than with the person.
The plat and the legal description
A subdivision is created on paper before it is created on the ground. The plat is the recorded map dividing a larger tract into numbered lots and dedicating the streets and easements. Once recorded, a parcel can be identified by lot and block within that plat, which is why suburban legal descriptions are usually short.
Land outside a platted subdivision is described differently, by reference to the rectangular survey of sections and townships, or by metes and bounds, a written walk around the perimeter in bearings and distances. In all three cases it is the description, not the street address, that is the thing conveyed.
What the commitment is telling you
A title commitment is written as an offer: here is the policy we will issue, provided these requirements are met, and subject to these exceptions. The requirements are the work list for closing. The exceptions are the things the insurer will not cover, and they are the part worth reading slowly, because they describe what the parcel actually is once its recorded burdens are included.
An exception is not necessarily a problem. An ordinary utility easement along a rear boundary is both an exception and completely unremarkable. The point is to know which ones are ordinary and which are not.