Land title insurance is a form of property insurance that, in essence, protects the owner, mortgage lender, or developer of a property in the instance where it is discovered that the individual or group does NOT have the full rights and title to the land as originally speculated.ALTA has also, in coordination with the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM), a professional organization of surveyors, specified uniform standards on land surveying and measurement.

 

Title insurance is fairly particular to the United States, due to a long history of poor property record maintenance in numerous states and former territories,property. Policies often cover full indemnity in the instances that a policyholder’s title is rendered invalid. Title insurance is unique amongst nearly all forms of insurance because it does not indemnify against future actions, but retroactively toward previous events (namely preexisting property conflicts).

 

The ALTA specify the three main forms of title insurance policy as owner, lender, and builder.

 

Historically, though, title insurance polices are also low risk policies from the perspective of the insurance industry. Most of the policies’ premium revenue is directed towards assuring the validity of an insured property; title insurance is not even typically calculated using standard actuary tables. Instances of actual title conflict are fairly rare, and are often the result of very extenuating circumstances, and sometimes even criminal action. Naturally, as the country has progressed, most states have a fairly standardized method of document recording, with only a few states still requiring actual property review.

 

The ALTA has been largely beneficial to the process of consumer education, and in encouraging ethical practices in the real estate industry. The ALTA went so far as launching the Title Industry Consumer Initiative where the ALTA specifies a five point “Principles of Fair Conduct,” which not only call for the highest ethical behavior and consumer education, but also to support a culture of compliance throughout the entire industry.

 

The ALTA’s alliance with ACSM has been a core part of this process. By promoting the ACSM’s recommended surveying standards, ALTA and ACSM have tried to minimalism the potential for future land conflicts and to remedy those that do occur in as timely a manner as possible.

For thousands of years, the land survey has been a crucial element of nearly all real estate law and real estate litigation. Incorporating nearly every element of mathematics, hard science, and property law, surveying is often oversimplified by some as a means of ascertaining the the boundaries of a property.

Also incorporating soil constitution, building measurement, and constitution of terrain, land surveys are crucial in many forms of legal litigation, such as in civil actions and criminal proceedings. Its scope varies in breadth from the studio apartment to the average neighborhood, all the way up to our largest cities. When the result of scrupulous data collection, the land survey forms the basis by which any legal judgment on property is based and determined.

A particular and unique form of property indemnity, land title insurance protects landowners, mortgage lenders, and developers in the rare instances where it is discovered that a property’s ownership has been rendered invalid. Unique in its implementation, title insurance finds its basis in the United States’s rather spotty history of property record keeping. 

A key organization in establishing the standards of title insurance is the American Land Title Association (ALTA), a trade organization that sets the policy in the industry.  has promoted consumer education, encourages a culture of ethical practice in the real estate industry, and, in coordination with the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM), has attempted to implement uniform standards on land surveying and measurement.