Title in a Minute with Shawn Tidwell

The map

The concepts, in plain English.

A short orientation to the commercial title ideas Title in a Minute keeps returning to. Think of these as the headings — the episodes go deeper, one issue at a time.

01

Title insurance, briefly

What it actually protects against, and how owner's and lender's policies differ.

 02

The commitment & Schedule B

How to read a commitment — requirements versus exceptions, and why it matters.

 03

ALTA endorsements

The add-on coverages that tailor a policy to a specific deal's risks.

 04

Surveys

What an ALTA/NSPS survey shows, and how it interacts with title coverage.

 05

Curative work

Clearing the defects between a flagged exception and a clean closing.

 06

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01 — Title insurance, briefly

Protection for what already happened.

Most insurance covers future events. Title insurance is the unusual one that covers the past — defects in the ownership history of a property that already exist on the day the policy issues, even if no one has found them yet. Liens, gaps in the chain of ownership, undisclosed heirs, errors in prior recordings, and similar problems are the kinds of risks it addresses.

Two policy types do most of the work in a commercial deal. An owner's policy protects the buyer's interest in the property. A lender's policy protects the lender's security interest in it. They cover overlapping but distinct concerns, which is why a single closing often involves both.

The practical value isn't only the claim payment if something goes wrong — it's the search and examination done before closing, which surfaces most problems while there's still time to fix them.

02 — The commitment & Schedule B

The document the whole deal turns on.

Before a policy issues, the title company issues a commitment — its promise to insure on stated terms once certain conditions are met. Reading it well is most of the job, and it comes down to telling two schedules apart.

Schedule A
The facts of the deal: who's being insured, the policy amount, the current owner, and the legal description of the property. This is the "what we're insuring" page.
Schedule B-I
The requirements — the things that must happen before the policy issues, such as paying off an existing loan or obtaining a specific document.
Schedule B-II
The exceptions — the matters the policy will not cover. This is where risk quietly stays with the buyer or lender, and where careful reading pays off most.

The single most useful habit: read Schedule B-II first, and for each exception ask "who carries this risk after closing, and is that acceptable for this deal?"

03 — ALTA endorsements

Coverage, tailored to the deal.

A base policy is a starting point. Endorsements are standardized add-ons — most commonly the ALTA forms — that modify or expand coverage to fit a particular transaction's risks. A development site, a multi-parcel acquisition, and a single leased building all carry different concerns, and endorsements are how a policy is shaped to match.

They cover areas such as survey matters, zoning, access, contiguity of parcels, and more. The skill isn't memorizing every form — it's knowing which risks a specific deal actually has, and requesting the endorsements that address them. That judgment is exactly the kind of thing an episode can make concrete.

A note on specifics. Endorsement availability, numbering, and exact coverage vary by form version, state, and underwriter. Treat these primers as orientation, and confirm the operative language and current form for any real transaction.

04 — Surveys

What the ground actually shows.

Title work establishes what the records say about a property. A survey establishes what's true on the ground — boundaries, improvements, easements, encroachments, and access. The two are meant to agree, and the interesting moments are when they don't.

The ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is the standard used for commercial transactions because it's built specifically to support title insurance, with an agreed set of items the surveyor can address. A good survey lets the title company remove or refine certain survey-related exceptions — which is why the survey and the commitment should always be read together, not in separate rooms.

  • Boundaries vs. legal description — do the surveyed lines match the description being insured?
  • Easements — are recorded easements shown, and do any burden the usable area?
  • Encroachments — does anything cross a boundary, in either direction?
  • Access — does the parcel actually reach a public road, by record and in fact?

05 — Curative work

From flagged to clean.

When the search turns up a defect — an old mortgage never released, a gap in the chain, a misindexed document, a probate that didn't fully close — the work of resolving it is called curative. It's the quiet craft of commercial title: most deals have at least one item, and the difference between a smooth closing and a scramble is usually how early the curative work started.

Some defects clear with a single document. Others take affidavits, releases, corrective instruments, or time. The judgment is in recognizing, early, which exceptions are routine and which ones deserve attention now — before they're standing between the parties and the table.