Colorado Title Search: Commitment, Exceptions and Deadlines

A title search in Colorado is the title company's review of the county recorded documents on a property: every deed, deed of trust, release, lien, easement, plat, covenant, judgment and tax record in the chain of ownership. The result is a title commitment, delivered to the buyer within days of going under contract, and the commitment is what the buyer, the buyer's agent and the lender read before the Record Title Objection Deadline. Colorado closes through title companies, not attorneys, so the title company that searches is also the company that insures and closes.

This guide explains what the search finds, how to read the commitment, which deadlines in the Contract to Buy and Sell protect you, the defects that show up on Front Range homes, and who pays for which policy. It applies to buyers, to sellers who want a clean closing, and to agents managing the deadlines.

Who performs the title search in Colorado?

The title company named in the contract orders the search from its own examiners or from a title plant, an indexed copy of the county records. The seller's agent chooses the title company on most Colorado listings because the seller pays for the owner's policy by custom, and the buyer accepts or negotiates the choice in the offer. A search on a Denver metro home with a normal chain takes 2 to 5 business days; a rural Weld or Elbert County parcel with mineral and water history takes longer.

The American Land Title Association has reported for years that roughly one in three residential searches turns up a problem that has to be cured before closing. Most are paperwork: an old deed of trust never released, a name spelled two ways, a missing probate document. A few are real disputes over boundaries, access or ownership.

How to read a Colorado title commitment

The commitment has three parts. Read all three; the second and third are where the problems live.

Schedule B-2 is the list that carries into your deed. A utility easement across the back 10 feet is standard. A driveway easement that gives a neighbor access through your garage court is not. A mineral reservation from 1952 on a Brighton or Erie lot means someone else owns what is under the surface. You have the right to object to any of them by the deadline, and to walk if the seller will not or cannot fix the one that matters.

The Record Title and Off-Record Title deadlines

The Colorado Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate gives the buyer a set of dated title rights, and the buyer proposes the dates in the offer:

• Record Title Deadline. The seller delivers the title commitment and copies of every document listed in Schedule B. Set this 7 to 10 days after Mutual Execution of Contract on a Denver metro home.
• Record Title Objection Deadline. Your written objection to any recorded matter is due. Miss it and you accept the exceptions as they stand.
• Off-Record Title Deadline. The seller delivers what the seller knows that is not recorded: an unrecorded lease, a boundary agreement, a neighbor's use of the land, a pending claim.
• Off-Record Title Objection Deadline. Your objection to any of those is due.
• Title Resolution Deadline. If the seller has not cured your objection in writing by this date, you terminate and the earnest money returns from the title company.

The making an offer on a Colorado home page shows where each of these sits in the Dates and Deadlines table, and what happens after your offer is accepted runs the same calendar day by day.

Title defects common on Colorado homes

• Unreleased deed of trust. Colorado is a deed of trust state, and each county has an elected Public Trustee who records the release when a loan is paid off. A lender that paid off in 2009 and never sent the release request leaves a cloud that the seller's old lender has to cure, and that takes 2 to 6 weeks.
• Severed mineral estate. On the northern Front Range, in Weld, Adams and eastern Arapahoe counties, the mineral estate under thousands of subdivisions was sold or reserved decades ago. The Colorado contract carries a printed disclosure that the surface and mineral estates are sometimes owned by different parties. You cannot buy the minerals back at closing; you decide whether to own the surface anyway.
• Oil and gas leases. A recorded lease gives the operator rights the policy excepts. Read the lease term and the surface-use language on any home east of I-25 north of Denver.
• HOA liens. Unpaid assessments attach to the home as a lien under the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act. The seller's HOA status letter, ordered by the title company, shows the balance to be paid at closing.
• Easements and ditch rights. Irrigation ditch companies hold recorded rights across older Littleton, Arvada, Lakewood and Longmont lots, with access to maintain the ditch. Utility and drainage easements limit where you build a shed or a fence.
• Judgment and tax liens. A recorded judgment against the seller, or a county treasurer tax lien sold at the annual tax lien sale, must be paid from seller proceeds before the deed records.
• Probate and divorce gaps. A deed signed by one spouse after a Colorado dissolution, or a home still vested in a deceased owner with no probate order, stops the closing until the court paperwork is recorded.
• Legal description errors. A lot number or a metes-and-bounds call typed wrong in 1998 repeats in every later deed until a corrective deed fixes it.

Sellers with one of these on the commitment should read can you sell a house fast if the title isn't perfect; most defects cure inside the contract period when the seller starts on day one.

Owner's policy versus lender's policy

The search finds what is recorded. Title insurance covers what the search missed or what was never recorded: a forged deed, an undisclosed heir, a recording error, a lien filed the day before closing. Two policies are issued at a financed Colorado closing.

• The owner's policy insures you for the purchase price for as long as you or your heirs own the home. One premium, paid at closing, no renewals.
• The lender's policy insures the lender for the loan balance and pays nothing to you. Your lender requires it, and it is issued at a reduced simultaneous-issue rate alongside the owner's policy.
• Owner's Extended Coverage (OEC) removes the standard exceptions for unrecorded matters such as survey issues and mechanic's liens. The contract has a checkbox for whether you want OEC and who pays.

By Colorado custom, the seller pays for the owner's policy and the buyer pays for the lender's policy. The contract states both; a buyer in a multiple-offer contest sometimes offers to pay the owner's premium to sweeten the terms. Premiums on Front Range homes between $400,000 and $800,000 run $1,200 to $2,500 for the owner's policy and $150 to $400 for the lender's simultaneous-issue policy, with OEC adding a further $100 to $300. Rates are filed with the Colorado Division of Insurance, so quotes from two title companies land close together. Every line appears on your settlement statement; see closing costs for Colorado home buyers.

The lender's policy is one line item inside the loan estimate. For loan questions the Kenna Real Estate Group works with Mike Oswald, VP of Mortgage Lending at Rate, NMLS 261003, Equal Housing Lender. You are free to use any lender. Compare programs on the Colorado home financing guide.

Survey or Improvement Location Certificate?

The title search reads documents; it does not measure the lot. An Improvement Location Certificate (ILC), $300 to $600, shows where the house, fence and driveway sit relative to the recorded lot lines and is what most Front Range lenders and title companies accept. A boundary survey with set monuments costs $1,500 to $4,000 and is the right order when a fence line, a shed or a neighbor's driveway looks wrong on the ILC. Our post on Colorado ILC versus land survey compares the two.

Looking up Colorado property records yourself

Before you write an offer, read the public record. Every Colorado county assessor and clerk and recorder posts ownership, parcel, tax and recorded document indexes online, and third-party property records sites compile them by address. Check three things: the owner name matches the seller on the listing, the last deed of trust is released or will be paid at closing, and the parcel size matches the listing. Title plants and large title companies now run automated title search software that indexes decades of documents, and the same vendors are processing property documents with optical character recognition so a Denver commitment that took a week in 2015 takes two days now. The examiner still reads every exception; the software finds the pages faster.

Wire fraud at a Colorado closing

The title company sends wire instructions once, on paper or through its secure portal, and never changes them by email. Before you send your down payment, call the title company at the number on the commitment, not a number in an email, and read the account number back. Fraudulent last-minute changes to wire instructions are the single largest loss buyers face at closing, and the money is unrecoverable within hours. The Kenna Real Estate Group confirms every buyer wire by phone with the closer. Read what is needed to close on a house in Colorado for the rest of closing week.

For sellers: order the commitment before you list

A seller who orders a preliminary title commitment two weeks before listing finds the unreleased deed of trust, the lien or the vesting problem while there is time to cure it, instead of in week two of a contract with the Title Resolution Deadline running. See how we help Colorado sellers.

Where to go next

• The Colorado home buyer's guide
• How we help Colorado buyers
• Escrow: what happens after your offer is accepted
• Selling a Colorado house when the title is not perfect
• Meet the Kenna Real Estate Group agents
• Search every home for sale in Colorado

Talk to the Kenna Real Estate Group

The Kenna Real Estate Group, Keller Williams DTC, reads every Schedule B exception on every purchase, sets the Record Title and Off-Record Title deadlines to give you time to object, and confirms every wire by phone before closing. Call or text 303-955-4220. A live person answers. Not a robot, not a phone tree. Then search every home for sale in Colorado.