If the bank paid the taxes before the sale, then imposed the lien after the sale, there would be absolutely no way for the title company to pick up on a problem.
If the bank paid the taxes before the sale, then imposed the lien after the sale, there would be absolutely no way for the title company to pick up on a problem.
I do understand what both of you are saying but I simply disagree with you that a potential lien was not discoverable before the closing.
The property was in foreclosure and in Florida that means a judicial foreclosure. There is a court file that presumably includes all the issues related to the foreclosure. Where did BOA come up with a judgment against the escrow company for the non-payment of the taxes that allowed BOA to file the lien on the property?
I think it is undisputable that OP did not get a clear title.
What magic trick do you believe would allow a title company to detect that the bank had paid the taxes, and might file a lien at some point in the future after the title history had been run and after the sale was closed?
A local search at the municipal level would have shown when and who paid the taxes. This would have been in or about late 2010 when OP contracted with the insurance company. They would have seen that an escrow company was paying the taxes up until 2010 at which time or earlier , the payments stopped. Taxes go into arrears as does the mortgage payments. BOA commenced a foreclosure. Now we have a court record of the proceedings associated with the specific property.
The foreclosure and tax delinquency are two separate issues but BOA has to clear up the taxes to be able to sell the property after foreclosure. Can we agree on that?
All of this that took place before the closing is discoverable. If the title company did their research 4 months before the closing and didn't check just prior then they might not have known. But that is their problem. They issued a clear title at closing.
I would still like to know where the judgment for the lien came from and when the judgment was issued.
The OP has made it clear that the lien came from BOA. It is also not the responsibility of a title company to search for organizations that might place a lien on a property at some point in the future, because, of course, once a property is no longer owned by a debtor, a lien cannot be placed against that property for that debt. This is clearly an error on the part of BOA.
And how do you propose that the identity of the person or entity that paid the taxes would indicate that there's a potential cloud on the title? People routinely escrow their taxes and have them paid by their mortgage lender or servicer.
The issue under debate is not whether the bank made a mistake and should fix things, as would appear to be the case. It's the fantasy that this would fall under title insurance. That said, if the bank wants to sell property REO with an outstanding tax liability, it is free to do so.Quoting budwad
Because the title was clear at closing.Quoting budwad
Even if I bought into the view that the title company had to investigate who paid the property taxes, and then follow up with them to find out if they were reimbursed if it were anybody but the title owner, it would be ludicrous to suggest that they had to do so over and over and over right up to the moment of closing "just in case" something new happened. Had a tax debt been discovered and had the bank agreed to pay it off prior to closing, it would be reasonable to expect that the payoff would be verified; but we're speaking of a situation in which there was neither a tax debt that could have been discovered nor a lien resulting from its payoff.