Title Review and Real Estate Closing Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Summary. Real estate closings fail on items disclosed weeks earlier in a document nobody read line by line. The commitment's Schedule B-I is a task list with owners and dates, and Schedule B-II is a set of risks each of which must be classified as acceptable, requiring information, requiring cure, or deal-affecting. This checklist converts both into a working process, adds the survey ordering and Table A selections that reveal what a title search cannot, sets out the endorsements worth buying commercially, and runs the closing — including the wire verification step that prevents the most common uninsured loss in the industry.

What this checklist is for. Reviewing title and closing a commercial or significant residential purchase. For the underlying framework, see Title Insurance and Curing Title Defects.

Phase 1 — On signing the contract

Calendar the title review period and the seller's cure period from the purchase agreement. Objections not made in time are waived.
Order the title commitment, specifying the policy amount, the estate insured, and the endorsements requested.
Order the ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey, certified to the buyer, the lender, and the underwriter. Surveys take three to six weeks; order on day one.
Provide the surveyor with the title commitment and copies of every exception document so each can be plotted or noted as unplottable.
Select Table A items deliberately: monuments, vicinity map, flood zone, gross land area, zoning setbacks (with a zoning report supplied by the client), building dimensions and square footage, substantial observed features including striped parking counts, utilities, adjoining owners, offsite easements benefiting the property, and evidence of recent earth-moving or construction.
Order the zoning report if a zoning endorsement is wanted.
Order environmental diligence at the level the property's history warrants.
Request the seller's prior owner's policy, which may reduce the premium and help clear old exceptions.
Confirm whether the title rate is filed or negotiable in this state.

Phase 2 — Reading the commitment

Schedule A

Confirm the named insured, the estate insured, the policy amount, and the effective date.
Match the legal description against the survey and against the deed into the seller, word for word.
Confirm the current record owner is the seller.

Schedule B-I — Requirements

Convert every requirement into a task with an owner and a due date, and circulate the list weekly.
Identify the long-lead items: releases from defunct lenders, probate proceedings, quiet title actions, and municipal approvals.

Schedule B-II — Exceptions

Obtain a copy of every recorded instrument referenced. An exception reciting a book and page tells you nothing.
Plot every easement on the survey.
Classify each exception as acceptable, requiring further information, requiring cure, or deal-affecting.
Read every covenant, condition, and restriction for use limits, architectural controls, assessments, and reverter or forfeiture provisions.
Identify any option, right of first refusal, or repurchase right.
Identify mineral, water, or air rights severed from the surface estate.

Phase 3 — Removing the standard exceptions

Parties in possession — remove with an owner's affidavit, a rent roll, tenant estoppel certificates, and an inspection.
Unrecorded easements — remove with the ALTA survey and an owner's affidavit.
Survey matters — remove with the current ALTA survey certified to the underwriter.
Mechanics' liens — remove with an owner's affidavit of no recent construction, lien waivers from contractors and suppliers, an indemnity, and, where construction is ongoing, a construction escrow with periodic date-down endorsements.
Taxes and assessments — obtain a tax certificate, confirm current taxes are paid, and check for pending or contemplated special assessment districts.

Phase 4 — Endorsements to request

Access and entry (ALTA 17 / 17.1) — actual vehicular and pedestrian access to a named, physically open, publicly maintained street. Essential, and it frequently reveals a problem.
Comprehensive / restrictions, encroachments, minerals (ALTA 9 series).
Zoning (ALTA 3 / 3.1 / 3.2), including setback, area, height, and parking coverage as to structures shown on the survey.
Single tax parcel (ALTA 18 / 18.1).
Contiguity (ALTA 19) where multiple parcels are involved.
Location (ALTA 22) and same as survey (ALTA 25).
Environmental protection lien (ALTA 8.1).
Easement damage and encroachment (ALTA 28 series).
Leasehold (ALTA 13) where insuring a leasehold estate, with a recorded memorandum of lease.
Fairway and non-imputation endorsements where the acquisition is at the entity level.
Confirm availability in the state, and confirm what each endorsement requires — a zoning report, survey detail, or an affidavit.

Phase 5 — Objections and cure

Deliver a written objection letter within the contract's review period. Object broadly; you can narrow later, and a late objection is worth nothing.
Track the seller's cure obligations and deadline, and the buyer's termination right if cure fails.
For each defect, identify the cure: corrective deed; affidavit of identity or scrivener's affidavit; release from the lender or its successor, or a statutory release-by-affidavit where the institution no longer exists; payoff and release of judgment or tax liens, with an affidavit of non-identity where the name match is a false positive; certificate of discharge for a federal tax lien; probate or heirship affidavit; deed from a non-conveying spouse or a recorded decree; boundary line agreement; easement grant for access; or a quiet title action.
Where a quiet title action is required, confirm with the underwriter before filing what the decree must say for it to insure over the defect.
Where a defect cannot be cured before closing, negotiate an indemnity, an escrow holdback, or affirmative coverage with defined release conditions and a deadline.

Phase 6 — Closing

Confirm gap coverage is provided for the interval between the effective date and recording.
Obtain a closing protection letter from the underwriter naming the buyer and the lender.
Verify wire instructions by voice, using a number obtained independently — never from the email — and verify again after sending. This is the most common uninsured loss in real estate.
Review the draft settlement statement two days before closing, not at the table, and reconcile every proration and credit.
Review the pro forma policy and confirm the exceptions were actually removed and the endorsements actually issued.
Collect the deed, the assignment of leases and rents, bills of sale, assignments of contracts and warranties, FIRPTA certificate, entity authority documents and good standing certificates, tenant estoppels and SNDAs, keys and access materials, and the seller's affidavits.
Confirm recording occurs promptly and obtain recorded copies.
Confirm the premium and endorsement charges match what was quoted.

Phase 7 — Post-closing

Obtain and read the issued policy, comparing it to the pro forma.
Confirm the legal description and the insured amount are correct.
Store the policy permanently; it survives the sale as to warranties given, and successors will need it.
Update insurance, tax billing addresses, and utility accounts.
Record any memorandum of lease or option the transaction created.
Calendar any post-closing obligations and escrow release conditions.

Common mistakes

Reading Schedule A and filing the rest.
Not obtaining copies of the instruments the exceptions reference.
Ordering the survey late, so objections cannot be made within the review period.
Missing the title objection deadline, waiving everything.
Declining an owner's policy because the lender is getting one — the loan policy protects the lender only.
No access endorsement, and a parcel whose recorded access easement does not reach a public road.
A utility easement across the intended building envelope, disclosed and never plotted.
Wire instructions verified by replying to the email.
No pro forma reviewed, so a removed exception was never actually removed.
Construction begun before the mortgage recorded, breaking mechanics' lien priority.

Primary authority

ALTA policy forms (2021 Owner's and Loan Policies) and the ALTA endorsement series; the ALTA/NSPS Minimum Standard Detail Requirements and Table A.
State law on recording, marketable title acts, curative statutes, mechanics' lien priority, and title insurance rate regulation.
26 U.S.C. § 6323 (federal tax lien priority) and § 6325 (discharge); UCC § 9-334 (fixtures).
Federal liens and priority: 26 U.S.C. § 6321 (lien arises), § 6322 (duration), § 6323 (priority against purchasers, holders of security interests, and mechanics lienors), § 6325 (certificate of discharge); 28 U.S.C. § 3201 (federal judgment liens).
Bankruptcy exposure: 11 U.S.C. § 544(a)(3) (trustee as bona fide purchaser — the reason a recording defect is fatal), § 547 (preferential transfer of a late-perfected mortgage), § 549 (postpetition transfers).
Fixtures and personal property: UCC § 9-334 (fixture priority), § 9-502(c) (fixture filings), § 9-515 (lapse of a financing statement).
Closing regulation: 12 U.S.C. § 2607 (RESPA § 8 anti-kickback), § 2603 (uniform settlement statement); 12 C.F.R. § 1024.17 (escrow accounts), § 1026.19(f) (TRID Closing Disclosure timing).
Reporting: 31 C.F.R. § 1010.380 (FinCEN residential real estate transfer reports), § 1010.230 (beneficial ownership); 26 U.S.C. § 6045(e) and IRS Form 1099-S.
Forms and standards: ALTA 2021 Owner's and Loan Policies (Covered Risks, Exclusions § 1, Conditions); ALTA/NSPS Minimum Standard Detail Requirements (2021) and Table A; the ALTA endorsement series (9-series restrictions, 22-series location, 25-series survey).
Foreign sellers: 26 U.S.C. § 1445 (FIRPTA withholding) and Treas. Reg. § 1.1445-2 (nonforeign affidavit).

This checklist is educational and not legal advice. Title practice, policy forms, endorsement availability, curative statutes, and closing customs vary substantially by state and by county. Consult qualified real estate counsel and your title underwriter before waiving an objection or closing over a known defect.