Title problems rarely announce themselves. A contractor who was never paid on a kitchen renovation four years ago, a tax bill that went delinquent during a probate, an old second mortgage that was satisfied but never released on the record. None of it shows up in the listing photos, and none of it shows up in the inspection report.
It shows up at closing, or worse, after it. And in almost every case the record that would have revealed it was public the entire time, sitting in a county office or on a county website, available to anyone who knew which index to search.
