Title Insurance for Wireless Facilities
This module discusses title insurance for wireless facilities. During the search area due diligence process, the site acquisition consultant conducts an ownership search to identify and contact prospective property owners about the wireless facility revenue opportunity. Once a selected location becomes the subject of a wireless facilities implementation project, capital investment in the search area assignment starts to escalate. A prerequisite to investing construction funds for improvements to real property is the ability to acquire and confirm quality property rights. The existing property owner cannot convey space rights to the facility developer that are greater than the real estate entitlements it possesses.
Title Insurance Industry
The American Land Title Association (ALTA)1 represents itself as the largest and oldest trade association for the title insurance industry in the US. ALTA offices are in Washington, DC, with an affiliated network of land and title associations located throughout the states. Another industry association, the National Association of Independent Land Title Agents (NAILTA),2 calls itself the voice of independent title insurance agents in the US. From their offices in Baton Rouge, LA, NAILTA claims to focus on concerns that are overlooked by ALTA.
The ALTA website offers an abundance of resources regarding title insurance including business tools such as policy forms for title insurance, online education, and policy statements. ALTA policy forms,3 the industry standard, include templates for title commitments and title policies. ALTA and the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS)4 co-sponsor a document called “Minimum Standard Detail Requirements for ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys.”5 This document and some title policy forms are available to the public without charge, but most ALTA forms are only available to ALTA members, licensees, and subscribers.6
Title Insurance Policies
As site acquisition consultants, you don’t usually see the title insurance policies that cover the properties for which you develop title insurance commitments. By the time the policy is purchased, you have finished your work on the project. Purchase of the title insurance policy is not ordinarily a site acquisition milestone. You may see the title policy held by the owner of a property that is the subject of your project or the policy of a tower owner whose structure is a collocation project.
A title insurance policy is typically a restatement of the title commitment to insure a property interest. The policy states that the issuing title insurance company insures the interest of the beneficiary against the risk of loss or damage up to the amount of insurance purchased as of the date of the policy. A list of the risks insured is detailed. These include the status of the property’s title up to the date of the policy. Title insurance doesn’t insure against risks to property ownership that arise from transactions that occur after the policy’s effective date, except to the extent the root of the risk occurred prior to the policy date. Risks originating after a policy date cannot be known in advance and therefore aren’t covered.
Title Insurance Commitment Report
The title insurance commitment may be referred to as the title commitment or the title report. Schedule A, Schedule B (standard policy requirements and exceptions), and supporting documents make up the title commitment from which a policy is issued. The schedules, the supporting documents, the title company policies, and the conditions of the policy make up the entire title policy.
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Title Commitment Review
Review the title report, identifying and scrutinizing the above-listed items for detail and accuracy. The required extent of your review of title reports should be detailed by the client or project attorney in the form of an email, memorandum, or title review checklist. Facility developers rely on site acquisition consultants and project attorneys to identify potential title issues and resolve the risk through curative procedures (curation).1
Legibility is often an issue for supplemental documents. Local title abstract companies often have duplicated courthouse records, resulting in illegible copies. When the title company cannot find an adequate copy in a timely manner, the Recorder’s Office in the county courthouse can often produce a better copy. You shouldn’t have to go beyond the title company for legible documents but sometimes it’s just not worth the wait required for a title company to deliver a legible copy of a document.
You should also scrutinize the title commitment details more…
Title Commitment Revisions
The project attorney specifies which exception items in Schedule B to cure or resolve. Resolution means having the property owner pay off a lien and obtain a written release of a lien. If the property owner had a mortgage on the property but paid it in full, a mortgage release should be recorded by the mortgage company. If not, have the property owner get the mortgage bank to record the release or satisfaction of the mortgage. After exceptions in Schedule B that can be resolved are resolved the title company can update the commitment, including the newly recorded documents, and removing items that have been resolved.
Schedule B exceptions may exist for easements that have been granted for utilities, such as power company lines, telephone company lines, and telecom company fiber-optics transport lines. Other easements might be for oil and gas drilling or pipeline placement of sewage lines, or water pipes. Special easements may have been created in an area to maintain distances between new development and certain types of installations. For instance, federal government underground missile silos require a quarter-mile of separation from other types of development, including wireless facilities.
Mineral rights or interests read more…
