How Do You Read a Florida Title Commitment Before Closing?

It describes the basis on which the insurer proposes to issue coverage. Receiving it does not mean every closing task is finished. Section 627.7845 is why the document follows a title examination. The search behind it is in what a Florida title search finds.

This walkthrough uses the Schedule A and Schedule B structure of the ALTA Commitment for Title Insurance (2021) filed with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. The commitment in your file controls. A short commitment can hold the item that matters. A long one can be routine recording steps. Count the answers, not the pages.

Before you read, keep the purchase contract and amendments, the complete commitment, any attachments it names, and the survey if you have one. Write the schedule item number next to each question so we are looking at the same sentence.

Schedule A identifies the proposed insureds, the policy types and amounts, the estate or interest, the current record owner, the commitment date, and the legal description. The legal description is not the street address. If the contract is for two lots, or a house plus a parking parcel, ask whether both descriptions are on the commitment. Flag a mismatch. Do not rewrite the legal description yourself.

An owner's policy protects the purchaser's insured interest. A lender's policy protects the lender. It does not stand in for owner coverage. Read owner's versus lender's title insurance. On a cash purchase there is no lender's policy unless you buy owner's coverage. Read title insurance for Florida cash buyers. If you change how you will take title, tell us before the deed is drafted. Read how Florida buyers take title. We do not choose that form, and we do not give tax advice.

The commitment date is the end of the search the commitment reports. It is not the recording date. Read what a Florida title gap exception is.

Requirements are conditions for the proposed policy to issue. They include payment, documents, and recording. A seller's open mortgage on that list is usually paid from closing proceeds. The requirement needs a status. It is not, by itself, a reason to treat the sale as failed.

A payoff letter and a recorded release are different steps. Section 701.04 covers the estoppel figure and the later satisfaction. Read clearing a judgment, tax lien, or old mortgage. If the seller says an old loan was paid years ago, we still need the release of record, or a path to get it. Do not assume every release is already recorded on the morning you sign. Ask who is ordering the payoff and who sends the release for recording.

For each open item, write the number, who is coordinating it, the next document, and when you should hear back. "We are working on it" is not that note. If you cannot find a prior deed or a lender's contact, say so when the file opens. If the owner of record is a trustee, one requirement is often a certification of trust, or the excerpts that show who may sign this sale. Read what a Florida trust certificate has to say.

Exceptions are matters the proposed policy would leave outside coverage. Some can come off after more work. A recorded easement or a recorded declaration often stays. A recording book and page is how you find the document. It is not an explanation of what the document does. Ask for the instrument. Then say what you care about: a pool, a workshop, a fence, extra parking, access, or a rental.

An easement is not automatically a problem. Ask who may use the area, where it is, and for what purpose. A survey can show the location. It is not the title search, and a listing photo or a fence line is not a survey. We do not decide where a pool can go. Take a question about legal meaning or enforceability to a Florida real estate attorney.

An endorsement or a different owner's form can change coverage, subject to its own limits and to underwriting. One file's option is not every file's option. Ask whether an exception would be deleted, narrowed, or left in place. Ask for the policy or endorsement language. "Fully covered" is not that language. Read what title insurance does not cover and enhanced versus standard owner's coverage.

The signed contract controls title review and any contractual remedy. A listed exception does not, by itself, create a right to cancel. There is no single objection period for every Florida contract. On the August 2024 Florida Realtors and Florida Bar residential form, the written objection is 5 days after the commitment. A different contract controls that file. Read the Florida title objection deadline. An informal question to the title company does not satisfy a notice the contract requires to be in writing. The commitment also has its own terms for amendments and expiration. Those terms are not the purchase contract's clock.

The commitment does not inspect the house, pull a permit, or decide zoning. If an enclosed garage or a home business is why you are buying, name that question and who is answering it. An unpaid utility or code charge is a municipal and utility lien search, not a line that always appears in the clerk's official records. Physical condition is a different contract clause. Read an AS IS contract and the title search.

Before signing, ask what changed on the items you flagged and ask for the latest complete commitment. Authorized written changes are how the ALTA form is amended. The issued policy is the coverage. Compare the insured name, the property description, the amount, the exceptions, and any endorsement you were promised. The policy can arrive after closing, once recording and a prior mortgage satisfaction are finished. Read what gets recorded after a Florida closing. If it has not arrived when we said it would, call (352) 792-1214.