Title search and records forensics investigations

It is a records examination that goes past a standard search. Rather than reporting the current owner and open encumbrances, a forensic investigation pulls and reads every recorded instrument in the chain, documents gaps and out-of-sequence recordings, and produces a written reconstruction of what the public record actually shows. It is the work behind a quiet-title action, a defective-assignment claim, or a dispute over which of two deeds reached the recorder first.

A title search answers a present-tense question: who owns this property of record, and what is recorded against it. A forensic examination answers a historical one: how did the record get into this state, and where does it break. The searches overlap — both start in the county where the property sits — but the forensic version reads the whole chain instead of the current position, and the deliverable is a written analysis rather than a report form.

No search can promise that, and we do not. An asset discovery search reports real property and recorded interests that have been recorded and indexed under the names we search, in the jurisdictions we search. Interests held through an entity, a trust, or a name variation we were not given will not surface under the name searched, and an empty result does not establish that nothing exists.

No. We report and analyse what is in the public record. A title insurance policy is issued by an underwriter, and an opinion on who holds marketable title today is a legal conclusion that belongs to an attorney licensed in the state where the land sits. Our abstracts and affidavits are written to be read by those professionals, and they have been admitted as evidence at the state, county and federal level.

All fifty states. AFX has certified title abstractors in every US county, offices in California, Washington, Florida and Michigan, and a dedicated title search property for each state. Recording and indexing practice is set locally and it varies — some counties report their records electronically and some do not — so the scope of a search is agreed county by county rather than assumed.

Not directly. AFXTitle.com does not take orders or quote prices; each search is ordered on the AFX property that runs it, and the specialty and state directories here link straight to them. If you are not sure which one fits, describe the matter and we will point you at the right one, or scope the investigation ourselves if it is forensic work.