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The Economics of Everyday Things

62. Title Insurance

The Economics of Everyday Things

Freakonomics Network

Business

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Almost everyone who buys a home spends thousands of dollars on title insurance. Most of them don’t understand it, and almost none of them use it. So why does it exist? Zachary Crockett closes the deal.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

When Christy Bieber purchased a home in Florida last year, she went through all the usual steps.

0:08.8

She signed a contract, had the place inspected, filled out a bunch of paperwork, and wrote some very large checks.

0:16.2

She and her family moved into the house in the fall of 2023.

0:20.5

Then one day they had a surprise visitor.

0:24.0

After we had moved in and started construction on the house, a lady showed up at the house and she said,

0:29.5

I actually own this house. Initially, Bieber thought that maybe this woman had been the

0:37.9

home's prior owner and that she was just paying a visit. So we're like, oh

0:42.1

hi, how are you? You know, it's so nice to meet you. You know, look So we're like, oh, hi, how are you?

0:43.0

You know, it's so nice to meet you.

0:44.0

You know, look, we're doing all this construction.

0:46.0

We're getting it underway.

0:47.0

And then she's like, no, no, you don't understand.

0:50.0

I own this house and the HOA took it for me and I'm getting it back.

0:54.4

And we were sort of dumbfounded by that.

0:57.4

Luckily, Beeper had the title to the home.

1:00.8

That's a legal term for ownership.

1:03.0

A title isn't a document, it's a concept.

1:06.0

And during the process of buying the house,

1:09.0

she had spent a few thousand dollars on a form of protection called title insurance.

1:14.3

When you buy title insurance the title company they'll do a search to make sure

1:19.7

there's no claims that are out there no no tax liens, nothing like that.

1:23.6

And then they give you a policy to insure you.

...

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