Name Variations & Your Personal Information

Apr 27, 2023 | Uncategorized

As a buyer or seller there is a lot of personal and private details you have to share with multiple parties. A few of these being your full legal name, marriage history, and social security number. These pieces of information are important for a title company to have in order to ensure clear title is being transferred. During a title search, we are looking through a thorough history of the property, looking for liens & judgments, and looking for individuals with claim to the property. Without the full information of those buying or selling the property, the search may not be comprehensive, leading to potential issues in the future.

 

Let’s discuss why these three pieces of information are so important to the title company working the transaction and what exactly the information tells us.

 

  1. Full Legal Name
    1. For males, the items we look for are suffixes (i.e. Jr., III, etc.). You probably don’t want any family members buying property under your name or give them any claim to the property you’re buying or selling.
    2. For females, the items we look for are middle, maiden, and married names. Some women will drop their maiden name, while others will drop their middle name when getting married. These variations in someone’s name can add confusion or errors in a file. It’s best to give any/all names you have been associated with, even previous marriages.
  2. Marriage History
    1. Though it may be a sensitive topic, and you may have filed all the paperwork and split assets evenly, we will need to run any previous spouse’s names to ensure they do NOT have claim to the property being sold or purchased. If a previous spouse does have a claim to the property, there is certain paperwork that must be signed by both parties. Doing this search up-front can save a lot of heartache later.
  3. Social Security Number
    1. Your social security number is needed to irrevocably prove that it is YOU in this transaction. This number leaves no room for interpretation and shows you are the rightful purchaser or seller.

Though this information is very private and sometimes difficult to share, it is necessary in a real estate transaction to successful transfer title. We at Choice Title never share personal information and only communicate these items in secure email and portals.