Mortgage Life Insurance, Mortgage Default Insurance,Home Owner’s Insurance and Title insurance are Four typical types of insurance available when you purchase or remortgage a home. Title insurance is a unique form of insurance. It protects your ownership or title against losses incurred as a result of undetected or unknown title defects, for as long as you own your home. Even if you are the rightful owner of a home, there are instances such as real estate fraud, when your title can come into question. Title insurance continues to protect your ownership from the day of closing to the day you sell your home. Coverage is also extended to heirs who receive your home in the event of your death.

Prior to the invention of title insurance, buyers in real estate transactions bore sole responsibility for ensuring the validity of the land title held by the seller. If the title were later deemed invalid or found to be fraudulent, the buyer lost his investment.

Title insurane is available in Canada for: residential dwellings of up to six units, vacant land, cottages ,condominiums,cooperatives, leased land

For a one-time fee, some of the covered title risks for residential properties include:

someone else owns an interest in your title, existing liens against the title, violations of municipal zoning by-laws, encroachments onto an adjoining property (other than fences and boundary walls), setback violations, realty tax arrears ,outstanding municipal utility charges, provided such charges form a lien on title, existing work orders, lack of legal access to the property, unmarketability of the land due to adverse matters that would have been revealed by an up-to-date survey / RPR/ Building Location Certificate fraud, forgery and false impersonation to the extent they affect the validity of title

Title insurance premiums

Title insurance is available for a low premium that is paid only once at the time of closing, and coverage is valid for the entire time you own your home. Your lawyer/ notary and his or her staff would be pleased to go over the premiums with you.

The cost of the premium is often offset by the savings from the reduction in the number of searches your lawyer/ notary might have to complete. Additionally, a title insurance policy can be obtained to satisfy lender survey / RPR/ Building Location Certificate requirements, thereby saving you the cost of up-to-date property survey / RPR/ Building Location Certificate. Average survey / RPR/ Building Location Certificate costs can be upwards to $1,200.

Lawyers / Notaries are still an integral part of the transaction

Title insurance does not replace the need to retain a lawyer/ notary. Lawyers/ notaries provide valuable independent legal advice on a variety of legal issues and prepare and register your deed/ transfer and mortgage. Your lawyer/ notary is the conduit between you, your lender, and your title insurer. In fact, title insurers rely on the legal opinion they receive from your lawyer/ notary in order to issue a policy. He or she will work with us to obtain a title insurance policy on your behalf.

The percentage of homeowners taking steps to get their mortgage paid off sooner has been steady since 2000. But the way people are attacking their mortgages has changed in a way that highlights the heavy load of paying a mortgage and all the other costs of everyday life.

The latest mortgage market survey from the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals shows that 15% of homeowners have been increasing the amount of their payments in recent years, down from 19% in the 1990s and early 2000s. Instead, owners are increasingly paying down their mortgages with lump-sum amounts. Sixteen per cent of owners did this in recent years – a rate that has crept higher since the 1990s.

Few things in life are free. Sure, there are free samples of protein bars at grocery stores and free hand-me-downs from grandma, but it costs you time to wait in line for the snack and effort to drop unwanted items off at donation centres. ‘p” So it should come as no surprise that it costs you money to manage your money – whether it’s banking fees, ATM fees or mutual fund fees. Or maybe it is a surprise to you. ‘p” Many mutual fund investors don’t know what they’re paying or even that they’re paying anything at all. According to a 2013 study by Environics, of Canadians over 25 years old and with more than $25,000 in investable assets, 25% said that they did not pay their advisor either directly or indirectly. ‘p” It’s important to understand what you’re paying and what you’re getting in return – then you can decide whether it’s worth it and whether you should take steps to minimize fees.