Title, deed and lien terms,
defined plainly

A short summary of a court's money judgment, prepared from the court record and recorded with a county, that is used to create a lien on the debtor's real property in that county.

Read: Abstract of Judgment: What It Is and How It Creates a Lien on Real Property

ACRIS is the New York City Department of Finance system that records property documents and publishes the searchable index of them. It covers Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens from 1966 to the present.

Read: How to Read ACRIS: A Practical Guide to NYC Property Records

A doctrine under which a person who occupies land owned by someone else, openly and without permission, can acquire valid title to it after a statutory period.

Read: Adverse Possession: Elements, Time Periods by State, and Color of Title

A unique number a county assessor assigns to one parcel of land so the parcel can be found, valued and taxed. Different places call it a parcel number, parcel ID, PIN or account number.

Read: APN Lookup: How to Find an Assessor's Parcel Number for Any Property

An easement that benefits a particular parcel of land (the dominant estate) by letting its owner use a neighboring parcel (the servient estate), and that passes with the benefited parcel when it is sold.

Read: Appurtenant Easement vs Easement in Gross: Who Benefits and What Transfers

An automated title search is a software-driven retrieval of recorded instruments and public datasets for one parcel, matched and assembled into a report with no human abstractor pulling each record by hand. It reads indexes and structured fields. It does not read land, people, or paper.

Read: What an Automated Title Search Misses

A deed that conveys the grantor's interest in real property for a price paid, without the full set of covenants about the title that a deed with full covenants carries. A version with a covenant against the grantor's acts adds one narrow promise.

Read: Bargain and Sale Deed: What It Is and How It Shows in a Title Search

A BBL is the 10-digit numeric identifier New York City assigns to every tax lot. It is one borough digit, then a five-digit tax block, then a four-digit tax lot, with leading zeros added so the value is always exactly 10 characters.

Read: What Is a BBL? NYC Borough-Block-Lot Explained

A CEMA is a New York instrument that consolidates one or more existing mortgages with a new advance into a single lien on stated terms. Because the existing debt is carried forward rather than newly created, only the new money is subject to mortgage recording tax under Tax Law § 255.

Read: Is That Mortgage Actually Open? Satisfactions, Assignments and CEMAs

The ordered sequence of recorded transfers by which a property passed from one owner to the next, each owner receiving title from the one before.

Read: Chain of Title: What It Is, an Example, and How It Differs From an Abstract of Title

A claim, encumbrance or defect appearing in the record that, if valid, would impair the owner's title, and that makes the title doubtful enough to discourage a buyer or lender until it is resolved.

Read: Cloud on Title: Meaning, Examples and How to Clear One

A condo master lot is the single tax lot the NYC Department of Finance assigns to an entire condominium complex for billing purposes. City Planning documents billing lot numbers in the range 7501 to 7599. Every unit lot in that complex on the same tax block shares one billing lot number.

Read: Condo Master Lot vs Unit Lot: Why a Title Search Shows 40 Mortgages

A sale of land where the buyer moves in and pays in installments, and the seller keeps legal title until the last payment. Also called a land contract, installment land contract or land sales contract.

Read: Contract for Deed: How a Land Contract Works and What the Record Shows

The local government office that receives real estate documents, adds them to the public record in the order received, and indexes them so anyone can look them up.

Read: County Recorder's Office: What It Records, What It Does Not, and How to Search It

A title search limited to the present owner of a property: it identifies the owner of record and the deed they hold title under, and lists what is recorded against the property now, such as open mortgages, liens, lis pendens and tax status. It covers the same ground as an owner and encumbrance (O&E) report.

See the Current Owner Search page

The signed document that transfers ownership of real property from the seller (grantor) to the buyer (grantee). Once recorded, a copy becomes part of the county land records.

Read: How to Find the Deed to Your House and Get a Copy

A deed is a document. Title is a legal status. The deed is how title moves from one owner to the next, and title is what the new owner holds once the transfer is valid.

Read: Deed vs Title: What Each One Is and How They Work Together

Recording a forged or falsified deed, usually with a fake signature or a false notary stamp, so that the public record shows a property as transferred when the real owner never agreed to it.

Read: Property Fraud Alert and Deed Fraud: How Forged Deeds Work and How to Spot Them

A deed given by a borrower to the mortgage lender, by agreement, so that the lender takes the property without a foreclosure case. "In lieu of" means "in place of."

Read: Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure: How It Works and What It Leaves in the Title

A document signed by the trustee of a deed of trust, after the secured loan is paid in full, that transfers legal title back to the borrower and releases the lender's security interest. It is recorded in the county land records.

Read: Deed of Reconveyance: What It Is, Who Issues It and How to Confirm It Was Recorded

A security instrument in which a borrower conveys an interest in real property to a trustee, as security for a loan owed to a lender. If the borrower defaults, the trustee can act on the lender's behalf.

Read: Deed of Trust vs Mortgage: Differences, Foreclosure and What It Means in Texas and Arizona

A deed search is a look through the public land records for recorded deeds that name a property or a person. It shows which documents were recorded, who signed them and when. It does not decide who legally owns the property.

Read: Cook County Deed Search: How to Look Up a Deed by Address, Name or PIN Also: Harris County · Philadelphia

Property taxes that remain unpaid after the delinquency date set by state law, which start to carry penalties or interest and can lead to a tax sale.

Read: Delinquent Real Estate Taxes: Penalties, Liens and How to Check a Parcel

An excise tax on certain documents executed, delivered or recorded in Florida. The two that matter for real estate are documents that transfer an interest in Florida real property, such as deeds, and written obligations to pay money, such as promissory notes and recorded mortgages.

Read: Florida Documentary Stamp Tax: Rates, Who Pays, Exemptions and How to Calculate It

A nonpossessory property interest that lets the holder use another person's land for a limited purpose, such as crossing it, running a pipe through it, or keeping a building from blocking light.

Read: Easement Meaning: Definition, Types and How to Find One on a Property

An easement implied by law, not written in a deed, that lets the owner of a landlocked parcel cross neighboring land to reach a road, because the two parcels once had a common owner.

Read: Easement by Necessity: How Landlocked Parcels Get Access and What Shows in the Record

An unauthorized intrusion onto a neighboring property through the creation or extension of a physical structure, including plants, above or below the surface of the land.

Read: Encroachment: Meaning, Examples, and What Happens When a Neighbor Builds Over the Line

A claim, right or interest in real property held by someone other than the owner that limits the owner's use of the property or the value or ease of transferring it, without taking ownership away.

Read: What Is an Encumbrance on Property? Meaning, Types and Examples

An arrangement in which money, documents or other assets are held by a neutral third party, the escrow agent, and released only when the conditions the parties agreed to are met.

Read: What Is Escrow in Real Estate: How It Works and Who Does What

An estate transfer is a link in the chain of title created by the death of an owner rather than by a sale. Title moves to devisees under a probated will or to distributees under the intestacy statute, and a fiduciary appointed by the probate court executes the deed that puts it on the record.

Read: Estate and Probate Transfers in the Chain of Title

A written statement from a party with a claim on a property, usually a mortgage lender or a homeowners association, certifying the amount owed as of a date, which the issuer cannot later contradict against someone who relied on it in good faith.

Read: Estoppel Letter: What It Means in Real Estate (HOA and Mortgage)

The United States' statutory lien on all property and rights to property of a person who has not paid an assessed federal tax after demand, made public by filing a Notice of Federal Tax Lien.

Read: Federal Tax Lien Search: How to Find an IRS Lien on a Property

A deed that conveys real property and gives the buyer limited protection: the seller promises only that the seller has not already conveyed the property and has not burdened it with encumbrances.

Read: Grant Deed: What It Is, What It Promises, and How It Differs From a Warranty Deed

Land held by several relatives as tenants in common after it passed to them from an owner who died, where no deed, probate order or agreement has sorted out who owns what.

Read: Heir Property: What It Is, Heir Property Rights and Why Title Is Unclear

A lien held by a homeowners or property owners association on a lot in its community, securing unpaid assessments and related charges, created by the recorded declaration of covenants and by state law.

Read: HOA Lien: How a Homeowners Association Lien Works, Ranks and Shows in the Records

A state-law benefit for an owner-occupied primary residence. It either removes part of the home's value from property taxation, protects part of its value from creditors, or both.

Read: Homestead Exemption: What It Is, How It Works, and How States Differ Also: Florida · Cook County · Texas

Both are ways for two or more people to own the same property. The key difference is survivorship: when a joint tenant dies, the survivors take the share; when a tenant in common dies, the share goes to that person's heirs or beneficiaries.

Read: Joint Tenancy vs Tenancy in Common: Survivorship, Shares and How the Deed Decides

A claim against a debtor's property that secures an unpaid money judgment. Florida creates it in two separate places: by recording a certified copy of the judgment in a county's official records (real property in that county), or by filing a judgment lien certificate with the Florida Department of State (most personal property).

Read: Florida Judgment Lien: How It Attaches, How Long It Lasts and How to Search It Also: Judgment Liens: How a Court Judgment Attaches to Real Property

The public records that describe a parcel and the documents recorded against it: the tax parcel and its owner of record, and the deeds, mortgages, plats, satisfactions and liens filed with the Register of Deeds.

Read: Horry County Land Records: How to Search Deeds, Mortgages and Parcels

A title insurance policy issued to a mortgage lender (also called a loan policy or mortgagee policy) that protects the lender's lien on a property against covered title defects. The borrower typically pays for it at closing.

Read: Lender's Title Insurance: What It Covers, Who Pays and Why It Is Required

A legal claim against a property that secures a debt. It usually stays attached to the property when ownership changes, until the debt is paid and a release is recorded or the lien expires.

Read: How to Check for Liens on a Property Also: on a house

A lien search is a check of public records for recorded claims against a property or its owner.

Read: Maricopa County Lien Search: How to Find Liens on a Property in Arizona

A written statement signed by a contractor, subcontractor or supplier that gives up, for a stated payment and a stated period of work, the right to claim a mechanics lien against a property.

Read: Lien Waiver: Conditional vs Unconditional, Progress vs Final Forms

A deed that gives a person ownership of a property for the length of a life, and names the person who receives the property when that life ends.

Read: Life Estate Deed: How It Works, Who Owns What, and How It Shows in Title

A recorded notice that a lawsuit is pending in which the judgment demanded would affect the title to, an encumbrance on, or the possession, use or enjoyment of a specific parcel of real property.

Read: Lis Pendens: What It Means When You Find One on a Property Also: Florida

A claim against real property for the value or agreed price of labor or materials used to improve it, created by filing a notice of lien with the county clerk under Article 2 of the New York Lien Law.

Read: New York Mechanics Lien Law: Deadlines, Filing and How Long a Lien Lasts Also: Mechanics Lien: How It Works, Who Can File and Deadlines by State

A method of describing a parcel of land by tracing its boundary lines (the "metes" are the measurements of direction and distance, the "bounds" are the boundaries and landmarks) from a starting point back to that same point.

Read: Metes and Bounds: Description, Example and How to Read One

An account run by your mortgage servicer that collects part of each monthly payment and pays your property tax and insurance bills when they come due.

Read: What Is Escrow in Real Estate: How It Works and Who Does What

A look-up of the mortgages or deeds of trust recorded against one property, starting from its street address and ending at the recorded loan documents, assignments and releases in the county land records.

Read: Mortgage Search by Address: How to Find Who Holds a Mortgage on a Property

A request to the local governments and utilities that serve a parcel for any code enforcement liens, unpaid utility service charges, special assessments and open or expired building permits tied to it, ordered before a sale or refinance closes.

Read: Florida Municipal Lien Search: Code Liens, Utility Liens, Assessments and Open Permits

A document an owner records in the county records, and posts on the job site, before construction starts, identifying the property, the improvement, the contractor and others who may later claim a construction lien.

Read: Notice of Commencement in Florida: What It Is, What It Contains and How Long It Lasts

A notice issued by a City agency recording that a specific condition at a specific building fails a specific section of law. HPD issues housing maintenance violations against residential buildings. DOB issues construction, equipment and safety violations, and separately issues OATH summonses, whose monetary penalties are adjudicated at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings.

Read: NYC HPD and DOB Violations: What They Mean for a Buyer

A sale in which the New York City Department of Finance transfers unpaid property tax, water and sewer, and HPD repair debt, together with the interest accrued on it, to a City-created Tax Lien Trust. The City sells the debt, not the property.

Read: The NYC Tax Lien Sale: How Properties End Up on the List

An open mortgage is a recorded mortgage that has not been discharged of record. The mortgage instrument itself is never removed from the index; it is closed only when a satisfaction, discharge or release referencing it is recorded, or when it is superseded by a consolidation instrument that absorbs the debt it secured.

Read: Is That Mortgage Actually Open? Satisfactions, Assignments and CEMAs

A limited property records search that identifies the current owner of record and lists the encumbrances recorded against the property, without tracing the full history of who owned it before.

Read: Owner and Encumbrance Report (O&E): What It Shows and What It Misses Also: Current Owner Search

The person or entity named as grantee on the most recent recorded deed for a parcel. It is the owner the public record recognizes, which is why title searches start from the deed rather than from the tax bill.

Read: How to Find Out Who Owns a Property, and Prove It

An insurance contract that protects the buyer of real estate against financial loss from defects in the title that existed before the purchase and were not known when the buyer closed.

Read: Owner's Title Insurance Policy: What It Covers, What It Excludes, and How Long It Lasts

A scaled drawing of a subdivision, approved by the local government and recorded in the public land records, showing the lots, blocks, streets, easements and boundary markers of the land being divided.

Read: Plat Map: What It Shows, How to Read One, and Plat of Survey Differences

An easement acquired through open and notorious use of an owner's land that is adverse to the owner's rights, continued without interruption for the number of years that state law requires.

Read: Prescriptive Easement: How It Works and How Long It Takes

The documented record of a specific parcel over time: its owners, the prices and documents that moved it, the permits and violations on the building, its tax record, and the liens and mortgages recorded against it.

Read: Property History: How to Look Up Past Owners, Sales, Permits and Liens

A search of a local government's tax records, usually online, that returns the tax bills, amounts due and payment status attached to one parcel of real estate.

Read: Property Tax Lookup: How to Find Property Tax Records and Bills for a Parcel

A court case, brought by a person who claims an interest in real property, asking the court to decide ownership and bind everyone else who claims an interest in the same land.

Read: Quiet Title Action: What It Is, When It Is Used and How It Works

A deed by which the grantor conveys their present interest, if any, in a parcel of real property to the grantee, without representing, covenanting or warranting that the title is good.

Read: Quitclaim Deed: What It Transfers, What It Doesn't, and When It's Used

The public documents and data that describe a parcel of land: the recorded deeds, mortgages and liens that affect title, and the assessment data a county keeps on the owner, size and value of the property.

Read: Pulaski County AR Real Estate Records: Where Deeds, Owners and Taxes Are Kept

The county office in North Carolina that records and indexes deeds, deeds of trust, plats and other instruments affecting land, so that anyone can find them and so that their order of recording can be proved.

Read: Durham County Register of Deeds: How to Search Real Estate Records in Durham, NC Also: Forsyth County Register of Deeds: Searching Winston-Salem Deeds and Land Records · Register of Deeds: What the Office Does and Who Records Your Deed

A written statement, signed by the party that holds a lien, that the lien on a described property has been paid, waived or otherwise ended. Many places also call it a lien release, a satisfaction of lien or a discharge of lien.

Read: Release of Lien: What It Is, Who Files It and How to Get One

A signed, acknowledged instrument from the mortgage holder or its servicer stating that the debt secured by a specific recorded mortgage has been paid, recorded in the same county land records as the mortgage so the lien is released of record.

Read: Satisfaction of Mortgage: What It Is, Deadlines by State, and How to Confirm One

The payoffs, taxes and fees charged to the seller at the closing of a sale, which are subtracted from the sale price to leave the seller's net proceeds.

Read: Estimated Closing Costs for Seller: What You Pay and How Taxes Differ by State

A public auction of real estate that a court has ordered sold to satisfy a debt, conducted by the county sheriff (or, in some states, a court clerk or other officer), after which the buyer receives a deed.

Read: Sheriff Sale: How It Works and What Happens to Liens Afterward

A popular term, not a legal one, for the claims an unauthorized occupant might make to land. In law the claim is adverse possession, and it succeeds only when a state's time and conduct requirements are all met.

Read: Squatters Rights: What Squatters Can Claim and How Owners Remove Them

A legal claim by a government on property because assessed taxes have not been paid. The claim secures the debt against the property itself, so it follows the property until the debt is cleared.

Read: Tax Lien: What It Is, How It Attaches, and Where It Ranks

A forced sale, usually an auction, of a property or of the lien on a property, held by a government to collect property taxes the owner has not paid.

Read: Tax Sale: How a Property Tax Sale Works, State by State

A written document, issued before a real estate closing, in which a title insurer states the conditions on which it is willing to issue a title insurance policy on a property.

Read: Title Commitment: What It Is, How to Read It, and How It Differs From a Title Search

A business that researches the recorded history of a property, evaluates whether the title can be insured, issues title insurance, and in many transactions also conducts the closing.

Read: What Does a Title Company Do? Search, Insurance and Closing Explained

Title insurance is an indemnity contract issued by a licensed insurer that pays covered losses if a defect in title existed as of the policy date and was not excepted from coverage. It insures against past events rather than future ones, for a premium paid once, at closing.

Read: Title Search vs Title Insurance: What Each Actually Covers

A review of the public records for a parcel to establish who holds title and what is recorded against it: deeds, mortgages and their releases, liens, judgments, lis pendens and unpaid taxes.

Read: How to Do a Title Search on a Property, Step by Step Also: vs title insurance · How HeritageDeed searches

A recorded deed in which a property owner names one or more beneficiaries who will receive the property when the owner dies. Until then the owner keeps title and can sell, borrow against or revoke.

Read: Transfer on Death Deed: How It Works, What It Skips and How It Shows in the Record

A deed in which the grantor promises the grantee that the grantor has good title to the property and will defend that title against other claims.

Read: Warranty Deed: Meaning, the Six Covenants, and How It Differs From a Quitclaim