re: Real estate attorneys: is title insurance needed?

Thank you for your comments. They are very helpful, especially the stats you gave me.

quote:

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When you buy owner's and lender's together its a couple hundred more on most residential transactions

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There is no lender involved so obviously lender's title insurance is not applicable.

It's only a single family residence for $340,000 and I'm paying cash.

The "owner's" title insurance cost shown on the HUD settlement form, which was emailed to me this afternoon, is $1,798, which seems unreasonably high to me.

I've never bought title insurance on previous houses when I've paid cash but our closing attorney is really putting the hard sale on me, which he has never done before, and I guarantee he won't get a chance to do again.

But the closing is scheduled for Tuesday morning and with Monday being a bank holiday (MLK, Jr. birthday) I really don't want to switch closing attorneys at this late date and delay the closing.

Besides, he has already done the title search and I'm sure he would want to collect the $760 he is charging me for doing that even if I got a different closing attorney.

I'm just trying to figure out if I've been stupid all these years for not buying title insurance.

Thanks again.