ThomasGoodwin.com

Please pardon my recent absence. It was partially due to some long hours of work and completing the required 30 hours of continuing education for my real estate license. It was also partially due to taking a little time off to relax and enjoy the Labor Day weekend. There will be a separate post regarding the holiday weekend! This post is an update to my August 20th article:

I found the letter!!! It turns out I did not throw it away, it was buried under a stack of bills and magazines in my living room. Here are the details:

For $69.50, National Deed Service Inc. will send you a “Certified Copy of your Deed” to your property. By “Certified Copy” they simply mean they will request a copy from the county recorder’s office in which you bought the property. As I mentioned before, they do have the disclaimer that they are “not affiliated with any governmental agency” and “Many government records are available free or at nominal cost from government agencies” but I guess they are banking on people not reading that far down the page. Or perhaps they feel that $69.50 is a fair price to pay for their company to do all that tough work of requesting a copy of the deed and mailing it to you.

Bottom line is this: you can call the county recorder where you bought the property and request a copy of your deed if you want/need one. If you recently bought your property, namely within the past month or so, you might want to call the title agency or attorney that facilitated the transaction and ask for a copy to be sent to you. There you have it, plain and simple. Don’t pay for something that you should be able to simply request and receive upon completion of your purchase. The Deed is your receipt showing that you bought the property, you shouldn’t have to pay someone $69.50 for a receipt.

Note: I may scan a copy of this letter into Adobe .pdf format and post it to this blog in the near future. Till then, be alert when you receive these official looking letters in the mail.

As always, I welcome your feedback and comments…