- Promulgated rates
- In Texas the Commissioner of Insurance sets title insurance premiums by rule, and TDI publishes the basic premium rate chart every title agent must use — the current chart is effective March 1, 2026. Every company charges the identical premium for the identical policy amount, so Texas title companies compete on service, turn time and curative ability, never on price.
- T-1 Owner's Policy of Title Insurance
- The Texas promulgated owner's policy. It insures the buyer's ownership against defects existing at the moment of closing — forged or missing deeds, undisclosed heirs, unreleased liens, recording errors — for as long as the insured or their heirs hold an interest. It is a one-premium, backward-looking indemnity, not a warranty of future events.
- T-2 Loan Policy of Title Insurance
- The Texas promulgated mortgagee policy, insuring the lender that its deed of trust is a valid lien in the stated priority position. Coverage declines as the loan is paid down and ends when the loan is satisfied — which is why a loan policy protects the lender's collateral and does nothing for the borrower's equity.
- T-17 Planned Unit Development Endorsement
- A Texas promulgated endorsement giving coverage relating to a property's inclusion in a planned unit development — assessment liens, restrictions and encroachments in the PUD context. Routinely requested by lenders on properties inside a mandatory homeowners association.
- T-19 and T-19.1 endorsements
- The Texas promulgated restrictions, encroachments and minerals endorsements — T-19 in the lender form and T-19.1 in the owner form. They add coverage relating to violations of restrictive covenants, encroachments over boundaries and easements, and damage from the extraction of severed minerals. Available subject to underwriting, and generally requiring an acceptable survey.
- T-47 Residential Real Property Affidavit
- The Texas promulgated affidavit in which a seller swears that no improvements, boundary changes or encroachments have occurred since an existing survey was made. When the T-47 is delivered with an acceptable prior survey, the parties can often avoid buying a new one — which makes it one of the most common last-minute holdups in a Texas residential closing.
- Area and boundary amendment
- The amendment to the standard survey exception, sometimes called deleting the survey exception. Without it the policy excepts to all matters a correct survey would show; with it, the insured gains coverage for boundary, area and encroachment matters. It requires an acceptable survey plus, in the residential case, a T-47, and carries an additional charge set by TDI's rate rules.
- Texas Title Insurance Basic Manual
- TDI's controlling rulebook for the Texas title industry, organized into sections covering insuring forms, rate rules, procedural rules, exhibits and forms, administrative rules, claims and personal property title insurance. Any statement about a Texas policy form, endorsement, rate or procedure should trace to it rather than to national practice.
- Rate Rule R-8 (reissue / refinance credit)
- The Basic Manual rate rule governing the discounted premium available on a loan policy issued in connection with a refinance or a new loan within a defined period after a prior insured transaction. It is the most commonly missed money-saver in Texas refinance closings, because the borrower has to know to ask and produce the prior policy.
- Underwriter / agent premium split
- The title premium is divided by rule between the underwriter that carries the risk and the title agency that does the search, examination, curative and closing work. The agent's retained share funds the local office, which is why title agencies live or die on volume and file efficiency — and why Schedule D of the commitment discloses who is receiving what.
- Licensed escrow officer
- In Texas, the individual licensed to hold escrow funds, conduct the closing and disburse — the person the transaction actually runs on. Escrow officers carry their own licensing and are the relationship an agent or lender follows from firm to firm, making them the industry's real competitive asset.
- Title agent licensing and audits
- Texas title agencies are licensed and regulated by TDI and are subject to examination of their escrow accounting and trust funds. Audit findings, reconciliation discipline and fidelity and surety coverage are the compliance backbone of the business, and the reason escrow accounting is not treated like ordinary bookkeeping.
- Title commitment
- The binding promise to issue a policy on stated terms, built from four schedules: A states the effective date, the policy amount, the insured and the current owner; B lists the exceptions from coverage; C lists the requirements and defects to be cured before closing; D discloses ownership of the title company and the distribution of the premium.
- Title search
- The examination of the public land, court, probate and tax records affecting a specific parcel, running the chain of ownership backward and identifying every lien, easement, restriction and defect of record. Everything in the commitment is downstream of the search.
- Abstract of title
- A compiled summary of every recorded document affecting a property. Historically the deliverable itself; today usually an internal working product behind the commitment. An abstract describes the record — it does not indemnify anyone against it being wrong.
- Chain of title
- The unbroken sequence of recorded conveyances from the earliest patent or grant to the current owner. A gap, a missing heir, a deed out of a dissolved entity or a break in the sequence is the classic reason a closing stalls.
- Cloud on title
- Any recorded claim, lien or irregularity that casts doubt on ownership — an old unreleased mortgage, a pending lawsuit, an ambiguous legal description, a probate never completed. Clouds are found by the search and removed by curative work.
- Curative work
- The active clearing of Schedule C requirements: chasing releases, obtaining corrective deeds and affidavits, resolving name and identity discrepancies, negotiating lien payoffs and, where nothing else works, a quiet title suit. The highest-skill function in a title office and the real differentiator between agencies.
- Lien release
- The recorded instrument that removes a paid-off lien from the record. Liens are not self-clearing — an unreleased mortgage from a prior sale is one of the most common curative items, and obtaining a release from a merged, failed or servicing-transferred lender can take weeks.
- Judgment lien
- A lien created when a court judgment is abstracted and recorded, attaching to the debtor's non-exempt real property in that county. Name-match judgments against people who merely share the seller's name are a routine and time-consuming curative problem.
- Mechanic's lien priority
- A lien securing payment for labor or materials on a property. Its priority relative to a lender's deed of trust turns on when work commenced and when the lien attached, which is why construction loan closings require lien waivers, affidavits of commencement and careful inception-of-lien analysis.
- Homestead
- Texas homestead protection shields a primary residence from most creditors' claims and imposes strict rules on how it can be conveyed or encumbered, including spousal joinder even when only one spouse appears on title. Homestead status is documented at closing and drives several standard requirements.
- Community property and marital status
- Texas is a community property state, so property acquired during marriage is presumptively community regardless of whose name is on the deed. Title companies document marital status, separate-property character and spousal joinder because a conveyance missing a spouse's signature can be voidable.
- Probate and affidavit of heirship
- When an owner dies, title passes through probate, a muniment of title, or — for estates without administration — an affidavit of heirship recorded to establish who inherited. Underwriting standards for accepting an heirship affidavit are strict, and estate transactions are the slowest common residential closing.
- General warranty deed
- The strongest conveyance: the grantor warrants title against all defects arising at any time in the chain, including before their own ownership. The default instrument in an ordinary Texas residential sale.
- Special warranty deed
- The grantor warrants only against defects arising during their own period of ownership. Standard for institutional sellers, banks, relocation companies, builders and many commercial transactions — and a reason an owner's policy matters more, not less.
- Quitclaim deed
- Conveys whatever interest the grantor may have, with no warranty that they have any. Title underwriters treat a quitclaim in the chain with suspicion and often will not insure over a recent one without additional curative, which is why it is the wrong tool for most transfers people use it for.
- Deed of trust
- The Texas security instrument for a real estate loan. The borrower conveys title to a trustee to hold as security for the lender, and the trustee holds power of sale on default. Texas uses deeds of trust with non-judicial foreclosure rather than mortgages with judicial foreclosure.
- Trustee's sale
- The non-judicial foreclosure conducted by the trustee under a deed of trust after notice, typically on a designated sale day at the county courthouse. A trustee's deed in the chain of title triggers close examination of whether the notice and sale requirements were satisfied.
- Tax deed
- The deed issued to the purchaser at a delinquent property tax sale. Because a former owner may retain a statutory right to redeem for a period after the sale, tax-sale title is not immediately insurable in the ordinary way and requires specific underwriting.
- Easement
- A recorded right allowing someone else to use part of the property — utility, drainage, access, pipeline, shared driveway. Easements survive the sale, appear as Schedule B exceptions, and matter enormously when a buyer intends to build.
- Encroachment
- A physical improvement crossing a boundary or sitting inside an easement — a fence, driveway, shed, eave or pool. Only a survey reveals encroachments, and their treatment drives whether the area and boundary amendment and the T-19 family of endorsements can be issued.
- Restrictive covenant
- Recorded private restrictions on use, structures, setbacks, materials or occupancy, usually via a subdivision declaration and enforced by a homeowners association. Violations are a curative item and are the subject of the restrictions coverage in the T-19 endorsements.
- HOA resale certificate and estoppel
- The association's written statement of current assessments, transfer fees, special assessments, violations and account status. It must be ordered early because associations and their management companies control the turnaround, and it is a top cause of a delayed closing in a subdivision or condominium.
- Survey exception
- The standard Schedule B exception for any matter an accurate survey and inspection would disclose. Left in place, boundary and encroachment risk stays with the buyer; amended, that risk shifts to the policy — which is why the survey conversation is really a coverage conversation.
- Closing Disclosure
- The federal five-page form itemizing the final loan terms, closing costs, cash to close and the seller's and buyer's charges in a consumer mortgage transaction. Preparing and reconciling it with the lender is a core settlement-agent function, and errors on it delay funding.
- Settlement statement
- The transaction-level accounting of every dollar in and out — sales price, payoffs, prorations of taxes and HOA dues, commissions, title and escrow charges, recording fees and net proceeds. Used for cash, commercial and seller-side closings where the Closing Disclosure does not apply.
- Escrow account and trust accounting
- Client funds held by the title company in a segregated fiduciary account, never commingled with operating money, reconciled on a defined cycle and subject to regulatory examination. Escrow accounting failure is an existential risk for a title agency, not a bookkeeping error.
- Good funds
- The rule that a settlement agent may only disburse against funds that are actually collected and available in the appropriate form — wired funds, certified instruments and similar — rather than against uncollected deposits. It is why a buyer cannot pay large sums by personal check on closing day.
- Funding and disbursement
- Funding is the lender's release of loan proceeds after reviewing the signed package; disbursement is the settlement agent's payment out of escrow to payoffs, sellers, taxing authorities, brokers and vendors. The gap between signing and funding is where most closing-day anxiety and most wire fraud attempts live.
- Recording
- Filing the deed, deed of trust and releases with the county clerk, which gives constructive notice to the world and fixes priority. Until an instrument is recorded, an intervening lien or transfer can outrank it — so recording order and timing carry real legal consequences.
- E-recording
- Electronic submission of documents to the county clerk through a submitter service, returning recorded stamps in minutes or hours instead of days. It compresses the funding-to-recording gap, narrows the gap risk window, and is now standard in the major Texas counties.
- Remote online notarization (RON)
- Notarization performed over live audiovisual connection by a commissioned online notary, using identity proofing and credential analysis, with a recorded session retained as evidence. Texas commissions online notaries public through the Secretary of State, and RON is now a routine option — though lender, underwriter and county acceptance still vary by file.
- Wire fraud and seller impersonation
- The two dominant closing crimes. In wire fraud, criminals compromise email and send altered wiring instructions to divert buyer funds or seller proceeds. In seller impersonation, a fraudster poses as the owner of unencumbered property — vacant lots, inherited land and non-owner-occupied homes are the favored targets — and attempts to sell it out from under the real owner. ALTA describes fraudsters using legitimate-looking identity documents and notary credentials against both residential and commercial property, which is why callback verification and identity proofing, not document review, are the real defenses.
- RESPA Section 8 and marketing service agreements
- Federal law prohibits giving or accepting anything of value for the referral of settlement service business and prohibits unearned fee splitting. A marketing service agreement may pay fair market value for actual marketing services performed, but agreements that in substance buy referrals have repeatedly drawn CFPB enforcement — making documentation, valuation and actual performance the whole ballgame.
- Affiliated business arrangement (ABA)
- A permitted structure in which a real estate brokerage, builder or lender holds an ownership interest in a title agency. It is lawful only within a safe harbor requiring written disclosure of the relationship and the estimated charges to the consumer at referral, no required use of the affiliate, and returns limited to ownership interest rather than referral volume. ABAs are the most common structural competitor an independent title company faces.