Long Island Real Estate Valuations and Title

The market for Long Island real estate can be difficult to traverse. It is a market that is more than a century old. There are luxury homes in Long Island that are completely unique and have no real comparable counterparts. The communities themselves are unique and sprouted up at different times, complicating home valuations even further. Since neighborhoods emerged at varying times, building plans differed almost constantly making pinning down property values a requisite task for a Realtor or other real estate professional.

Title for Long Island properties also possesses its own complicated history. Abstracters that prepare title have had their work cut out for them. Since the histories of many of the New York homes began prior to the existence of documents of title, a full summary of consecutive grants, conveyances, wills, records and judicial proceedings affecting title to a specific parcel of real estate can be hard to come by. Intense research of Long Island homes is often required and the title insurance that is part of virtually every real estate transaction nowadays is worth its weight in gold, especially when a property is more than a few decades old.

In addition to tracing the chain of title for a property, it is also important to produce a statement of all recorded liens and encumberances affecting a home and its current status. Once again, this task is left to the abstracter who searches the title as recorded or registered with the county recorder, county registrar, circuit court and other official sources. After conducting that deep research, they then summarize the various instruments affecting the property and arrange them in chronological order of recording, starting with the original grant of time. Since Long Island homes and their singular histories can vary widely, this task can be quite complicated, and at other times, relatively easy.