Abstracting real estate is a summary of the properties’ legal documents that the history of transactions is associated with a particular piece of land. This is generally incorporated as references to wills, mortgages, probate records, tax sales, deeds and court litigations- in short, any legal papers that has any effect on the property and your investment is what abstracting entails. It becomes very important that you pay close attention to this, both as a buyer and a seller since this will denote the monetary value of the property as well as give you enough information about what you are investing in.
While a gist of what abstracting means is good for understanding the concept, knowing how it is defined in the real estate community can help you learn it better.
i. Abstracting involves filing up a document regarding a particular property, concerning all the transactions that took place on the piece of land you are investing in. This will include every transaction that has occurred from the first time it was sold to the present day.
ii. Abstracting can very well be defined as pulling up written documents that state the transactional history of the property you are investing in. it is a legal bind containing material from the first sale of the property to the current day and includes all essential information like transfers, liens, conveyances and much more.
As is quite obvious, having legal documentation of the property you are planning to invest in can have a number of positives. Here mentioned are some basic uses of abstracting.
1. Abstracting helps with understanding your property better. In the real estate market, going by what the seller says is not always the best option. Each buyer and seller is only concerned about their profits, which also means they can hide information from you. This is when having listed documents showing the history of the property can help you understand your investment much better.
2. Abstracting provides the seller with a lot of vital information before making the investment. For instance, it tells you about the purchase history of the property, along with any liens or claims against the land. Knowing this kind of information often helps you find the right price for your purchase and avoid any future monetary damages.
3. So to say, abstracting is a rigorous process of legally ensuring that the property or piece of land you are buying is worth your investment. With abstracts of title, judgment and such other documents, you can very well know if you are making the right investment.
