What is the difference among a Land Title Document, a Certificate of Title and a Property Deed?

Question

What is the difference among a Land Title Document, a Certificate of Title and a Property Deed?

Answer 1

A deed is the document used to convey the property from one person to another. So if you buy a house, you should get a deed from the seller to you. You make sure that deed is "recorded" at the county recorder's office, and it becomes a permanent record of the sale, on file for the world to see. Recorded deeds have priority over unrecorded deeds. You also need to be sure that the seller received title through a recorded deed. That is why you get title insurance.

The title insurance company searches the county deed records to insure that the seller actually owns the property, and there are no recorded liens. Then when your deal closes by you paying the money and receiving a deed; the title insurance company issues a title insurance policy to you that insures that your recorded deed has priority.

The recording of the deed is important, because that is notice to the world that you own the property. If your deed is not recorded, the seller can sell or mortgage the property to someone else by giving them a deed or mortgage; and if that deed or mortgage is recorded before your deed, then the first recorded deed or mortgage has priority; even if it is dated and signed after your deed.

In practice this is all handled in by having the transaction close in escrow with the title insurance company.  They don't give the seller the money until they are sure the seller owns the property lien free, and that your deed is recorded and has first priority.  

Certificates of title are issued for autos, not real estate. But  that term might also be used in some states as the name of a title company's final report on who owns the property as of a particular date and time. Of course it is of limited use a short time after it is issued, because another deed or mortgage might be recorded a few minutes after the certificate is issued.

Land Title Document is a generic phrase without a specific meaning, but in some locations it may refer to the title company's preliminary report that shows who currently has the recorded title to the land.

Answer 2

.   The deed is your first choice.  It is recorded and shows you as the owner.

Land Title Document would be a paper from the Title Examiner at an escrow company showing the ownership.

Certificate of Title is an obscure term which might apply after a court case decided the ownership of the property.  It might be enuf to allow someone to sell the property.