A title commitment in real estate is the document a title insurance company issues before closing that spells out the terms on which it will insure the property’s title. It reports what the company found in the public records, lists what must be resolved before a policy will issue, and identifies the items the policy will not cover. The commitment itself is not insurance. It is a conditional promise: satisfy the requirements, close the transaction, and a policy follows.1
The Parts of the Document
Most commitments in the United States follow the ALTA Commitment for Title Insurance (2021), a standardized form from the American Land Title Association. State naming conventions vary a little, but the structure is the same: a set of conditions, a Schedule A, and a Schedule B in two parts.
Schedule A: The Basic Facts
Schedule A is the identifying page. It lists the effective date of the commitment, the proposed insured parties, the proposed amount of insurance for each policy, the type of estate being insured (usually fee simple), the legal description of the property, and the current record owner. The proposed amount of insurance will match the purchase price for an owner’s policy and the loan amount for a lender’s policy.
Read it against your purchase contract line by line. The legal description should match the property you are buying. The named owner should match your seller. Errors here delay closings.
The effective date does more work than it looks like. The title search covers records only through that date. Anything filed after it, but before your deed is recorded, sits in a window the commitment does not address. More on that below.
Schedule B, Part I: Requirements
Part I lists conditions the title company needs satisfied before it will issue the policy. These are not warnings. They are must-dos. Common items include:
- Payoff of the seller’s existing mortgage and release of the lien at or before closing.
- Clearance of unpaid tax liens, court judgments, or contractor liens against the property.
- A seller affidavit confirming no unrecorded liens exist, no recent construction work remains unpaid, and the seller is not a foreign person for purposes of federal tax withholding under FIRPTA.
- Formal releases of old easements, deed restrictions, or other clouds where required.
- Confirmation that the new deed and mortgage will be properly recorded.
Most of these fall on the seller. If a seller cannot clear a required item, most purchase contracts let the buyer either terminate or waive the defect and proceed.
Schedule B, Part II: Exceptions
Part II is where the title company lists what it will not insure against. If a dispute later arises over an item on this list, you have no coverage for it.
Exceptions come in two kinds. Standard exceptions appear on nearly every commitment and cover broad categories:
- Unrecorded rights of parties in possession, such as someone living on the property whose claim isn’t in the public record.
- Unrecorded easements, like a neighbor’s longstanding use of a path across the property that was never documented.
- Survey matters: encroachments, boundary disputes, and other problems only a physical survey would show.
- Unrecorded mechanic’s liens from a contractor who has worked on the property but not yet filed.
- Certain tax and assessment liens that don’t appear in the standard recording system.
Special exceptions are specific to your property. A utility easement across the backyard. Restrictive covenants limiting what you can build. A neighbor’s encroaching fence line. These come from what the examiner actually found in the records for your parcel.
Buyers routinely stop reading here too soon. Every exception is a carveout from coverage. If a restrictive covenant later blocks a second-story addition, or a utility easement kills your pool plan, the policy will not pay because the commitment disclosed the exception in advance.
Standard vs. Extended Coverage
A standard policy carries all five standard exceptions. An extended policy removes most or all of them. To delete the survey exception, the title company will typically require a current survey. Extended coverage costs more.
Those five standard exceptions cover some of the most common real title problems homeowners actually face: boundary issues, unrecorded easements, undisclosed occupants. If any of them concerns you on the property you are buying, ask the title company about extended coverage or about specific endorsements that address individual exceptions. An endorsement is an addition to the policy that provides coverage for a specific risk the base policy excludes.
How to Object to Title Problems
Your purchase contract sets a deadline for raising objections to the commitment. Objection periods are often short, sometimes as few as five days from receipt. Miss it and you may waive your right to object, which leaves you with a choice between accepting the title as-is and walking away entirely.
The standard approach is a written title objection letter to the seller or the seller’s attorney, identifying each defect or exception you want resolved. Typical objections:
- Liens the seller should pay off, such as back taxes, old mortgages that were paid but never released, or judgment liens.
- Easements that interfere with your plans for the property.
- Restrictive covenants you didn’t expect and weren’t disclosed during the sale.
Not every exception is removable. Utility easements serving active infrastructure won’t go anywhere. But if the title company won’t delete an exception, it may agree to insure over it with an endorsement for an additional fee. That is often the practical resolution.
The Gap Period
The gap period is the window between the commitment’s effective date and the moment your deed hits the public record. During that window, someone could file a lien, judgment, or other claim your commitment couldn’t have caught.
This is a real risk. A seller’s creditor could record a judgment lien after the search but before your deed is filed. A contractor who worked on the property could file a mechanic’s lien in the same window. Unless your policy specifically includes gap coverage, those filings may not be covered.
Many modern policies handle the gap as part of standard coverage. If yours does not, you can request a gap endorsement. Ask the title company directly whether the policy will cover claims filed between the commitment date and recording.
Marketable Title vs. Insurable Title
These two terms sound alike and are not the same. The difference can change what the seller owes you.
A marketable title has a clean chain of ownership and no unresolved defects. The seller has cleared every issue and delivers the property free of problems. An insurable title may still have known defects, but the title company is willing to insure against those defects causing you a loss. The defects don’t disappear. The insurer simply agrees to cover you if they surface.
Most purchase contracts require the seller to deliver marketable title. If yours calls for insurable title instead, the seller can leave known defects in place so long as the title company will insure over them. Those defects stay attached to the property. When you eventually sell, the next buyer’s title company may not be as willing to insure over them, and you can end up clearing problems the original seller left behind.
What It Costs and When the Policy Issues
Title insurance premiums are one-time charges paid at closing. There are no renewals. A lender’s policy typically runs between 0.1% and 1.0% of the purchase price. An owner’s policy averages at least 0.4%. On a $400,000 home, that is roughly $400 to $4,000 for the lender’s policy and $1,600 or more for the owner’s policy.
Separate charges usually cover the title search and examination. Some companies bundle these; others itemize them on the closing disclosure. Rates vary by location. Some states set title insurance premiums through a state agency, so every company charges the same. Others allow competition, and shopping matters. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau notes that borrowers who compare providers could save as much as $500 on title services.
The commitment doesn’t last indefinitely. The ALTA standard form sets a default expiration of six months from the effective date, and individual commitments may run shorter. A closing pushed past that window generally requires an updated commitment with a fresh search.
Once every Part I requirement is satisfied and the sale closes, the title company issues the actual policy. It mirrors the commitment but reflects the title’s final state after the requirements have been met. The Part II exceptions carry into the policy unchanged, so anything you didn’t negotiate out of the commitment stays excluded from coverage. Read Part II before your objection deadline, not after closing.