Services

Pre-Listing Title Search

The full title and municipal picture before the listing goes live, so the problems that kill closings surface while there is still time to fix them.

What this is

A pre-listing search is the same work we do at contract, run months earlier. The problems that collapse a closing — a mortgage paid off but never discharged of record, a contractor's lien nobody told the seller about, an open permit on the finished basement, a certificate of occupancy that does not match the house — are sitting in the public record before the sign goes up. Found at listing, each one is an administrative task with time to solve it. Found the week of closing, the same item is a price renegotiation, a blown rate lock, or a dead deal. We deliver a written report of what is on record, what it means, and what it takes to clear.

What you get

Current deed owner(s) of record
Open mortgages and home equity lines — including loans that were paid off but whose satisfaction or discharge was never recorded
Contractor and mechanic's liens, notices of lending, and unpaid materials claims
Money judgments, support liens, and federal and state tax liens against the seller and against prior owners in the chain
Unpaid property taxes, tax certificates and tax sales, plus water, sewer and other municipal charges
Certificate of occupancy verification against the property as actually built, and letters of no objection where no CO exists
Open and expired building permits, and permits never properly closed out
Open violations — building department, ECB, fire and health, plus HPD and emergency repair charges in the city
Any survey of record, with the encroachments, easements and boundary problems it shows
Easements, covenants, restrictions, rights of way, and unreleased options or rights of first refusal
Estate, trust and probate status — title still in a deceased owner, an unadministered estate, unclear fiduciary authority
Divorce, name-change and marital-interest discrepancies affecting who has to sign
Bankruptcy filings, lis pendens and pending litigation affecting the parcel
UCC, stock and proprietary lease review where the property is a co-op

How it moves

A pre-listing file runs the search and the clearance work, then delivers. There is no closing to settle or record against, so it ends at delivery.

Order

File opens, contact assigned

Search

Records pulled and examined

Clear

Exceptions resolved

Pre-Listing Search Issued

Final package delivered

Where it is available

This service is available in every county we cover. Recording practice, municipal search sourcing and local terminology vary by county — select yours for the specifics.

Common questions

How quickly can you turn this around?

Turn time depends on the county and the search package. Municipal searches and county-level returns move at the pace of the agency producing them, and a recording rejection resets that clock. We give you a realistic date at order rather than an optimistic one, and we tell you as soon as something slips.

Who will I actually be dealing with?

A named contact is assigned when the order opens, and you get direct access to the senior examiner on the file. You are not routed through a general queue.

Can you work with my existing title production platform?

In most cases, yes. Orders can be delivered as a structured payload into a production system or CRM rather than as an email. Tell us what you run and we will scope the integration.

What do you need from me to start?

At minimum: the property address and county, the transaction type, and the parties. Everything else — contract, existing deed, payoff information, survey, entity or trust documents — speeds the file up and can be uploaded securely at any point.

Open a File

Ready to order title?

The order form adapts to your county and transaction type, saves as you go, and returns a reference number with an assigned Viking Abstract contact. Prefer to talk it through? Call us.

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