Short answer? Old mortgages, tax liens, contractor liens, court judgments, easements, and gaps in who actually owns the place. If it was recorded against the house, or against the people who owned it, a title search can find it. Most of that gets cleaned up before closing. Some of it can’t be cleaned up. It just gets disclosed, and you buy the house with it.
That second group is where buyers get surprised. So let’s go through it.
What does a title search check before closing?
We pull the public records tied to the property. Deeds, mortgages, tax records, liens, court judgments, easements, surveys, probate files when there’s an estate involved. Then we trace ownership from one owner to the next, and every transfer in that chain has to line up.
Title Search Done Before Your Closing
Here’s roughly what turns up, and where it’s recorded:
| What the search finds | Where it’s recorded |
| Unpaid mortgage | County clerk |
| Property tax, water or sewer lien | Municipal tax office |
| Contractor lien | County clerk |
| Court judgment | NJ Superior Court |
| Recorded easement | County clerk |
| Ownership gap | Deeds, probate records |
We’re not just looking at the last sale, either. The search goes back decades. A mistake recorded in 1987 can still hold up a closing in 2026.
What liens can a title search find?
Mortgages that were paid but never discharged. Unpaid property taxes. Water and sewer bills. Contractor liens from a job that went sideways. All of them have to be paid or released before you get clear title.
New Jersey tax liens can get expensive fast. Stafford Township, right here in Ocean County, sends taxes that are still unpaid on November 11 to tax sale, and that sale sweeps in delinquent water, sewer and other municipal charges too. The lien sold there can carry interest up to 18%. So a seller who let a sewer bill slide for a while? That number may be a lot bigger by the time we find it.
Then there’s the mortgage that was paid but never discharged. The loan’s gone. The release just never got recorded. We wrote a whole post on it, what Happens When a Title Search Finds an Unreleased Mortgage in New Jersey, and the broader list lives in Common Title Defects: Liens, Mortgage Issues, and Legal Description Problems That Delay Closings.
How do judgments show up on a New Jersey title search?
Here’s the thing about New Jersey judgments. Once one is docketed, it’s a lien on every piece of real estate that person owns anywhere in the state. The New Jersey Courts say it stays in effect for 20 years, and it can be renewed for 20 more.
So a credit card judgment from 2010 up in Bergen County? It can still be sitting on a house in Point Pleasant today. Where the debt started doesn’t matter.
What easements can a title search reveal?
Recorded ones. Utility lines, drainage rights, a shared driveway, a neighbor’s right to cross a corner of the lot. And unlike a lien, an easement usually doesn’t go away at closing. It’s listed as an exception, and it stays with the house.
You can’t pay off an easement. If the utility company has a recorded right to run lines along your back fence, those lines are staying.
Then there are the ones nobody ever recorded. The path the neighbors have used for 20 years. The driveway that sneaks a foot over the property line. We can’t see those in the records. A survey can. That’s a big reason we talk about surveys in The Title Search and Closing Process in New Jersey: What Happens Between Contract and Keys.
What ownership issues can a title search find?
Breaks in the chain. A deceased owner still on the deed. A spouse who never signed. A legal description that’s just wrong. A transfer somebody forgot to record. Any of these has to be fixed before the seller can legally hand over clean title.
Estates are the classic one. Mom passes away, the kids decide to sell, but nobody ever probated the estate. Until there’s paperwork showing who has the authority to sell, the deal just sits there. Family transfers cause trouble too, quitclaim deeds especially. We break that down in Quitclaim Deed vs Warranty Deed: How Property Transfers Between Family Members Work.
Then there’s the smaller stuff. A misspelled name. A lot number that’s off by one. Sometimes those need a corrective deed, and sometimes a quiet title action in court.
What can’t a title search find?
Anything that was never recorded, or that looks perfectly fine on paper. A forged signature. An heir nobody knew existed. That unrecorded easement. This is the gap owner’s title insurance is built for.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners lists fraud, forgery, and mistakes in examining records among the defects title insurance protects against. None of those show up in a clean search. They show up later. Sometimes years later.
One more thing. You’ve probably seen the “1 in 3 deals has a title problem” line. It comes from an American Land Title Association survey of 2005 transactions, which found issues in 36% of them. That’s two decades old now, so take it as a ballpark, not a current stat. If you’re on the fence about coverage, read What Is Owner’s Title Insurance in New Jersey? Coverage, Cost, and Whether You Need It.
Frequently asked questions
How far back does a title search go?
Decades. We follow the chain of title back through the recorded deeds to make sure every transfer checks out, not just the last sale.
Can a judgment against the seller stop my closing?
It can. A docketed New Jersey judgment against the seller is a lien on the property until it’s paid or released.
Will a title search find an easement my neighbor uses?
Only if it was recorded. If it exists just because people have used it for years, a survey is what catches it.
Do I need a new title search if I’m refinancing?
Usually, yes. Your lender wants to know nothing new got recorded since you bought, and we explain why in Do You Need a New Title Search When Refinancing a Home in New Jersey?
Buying or selling in Ocean or Monmouth County? Our co-owner Joseph Hynes has spent more than 20 years in the title business. Start with our Title Searches page, reach out through Contact Us, or just call us at 848-360-7511.
