BiggerPockets

I agree with you. As long as you have a ttiel company or attorney do the closing and you buy title insurance - you're covered. This very scenario happened to me once. I purchased a house and the lawsuit did not show up in the title report - it was in the gap period. Then when I sold the house it showed up. Because I had title insurance they handled everything and it was no problem to me.

I would recommend getting your title report sooner rather than later so that if there are problems you can begin working on getting them resolved. If there are liens that the seller did not disclose and they total more than your purchase price, you may also want to back out of the deal before you start spending money on closing costs.

[size=18]YES[/size] because it is likely it could affect your title, and not only against the sellers, but against the house. Look in the county /city clerks office usually documents are available for free on line to give you at least a glance prior to you paying for a title and even placing an offer. I am still trying to untangle myself from a recent disaster regarding title..

A lawsuit can attach to all of the litigants property - including their house. But you're right, this is less likely than it is probable.

You don't need to run title before you put in an offer. If you find a problem after you made the offer you are under no obligation to complete the purchase.

I don't know, I haven't either, but I'd be careful. It's a judgment against the party owning the house. If there's a judgement against the owner then that means the person who won could possibly request that a lien is put on the house if the owner didn't pay the $ required as per the judgement. I suspect this would come up in title search but I'd be careful.

Always go to a title company for your closings and you will be fine.

I would never, ever do a kitchen table closing. It is way too dangerous for the sellers to cry " foul" and have it come back and bite you some how.

I will gladly pay the extra money to CYA.

[[[[......wouldn't regular people buying owner occupied homes have this issue?....]]]]

The title company checks this for every buyer. So the regular people who are buying an owner occupied home are getting the sellers (and themselves) checked for liens and lawsuits.

The big problem with lawsuits affecting the sellers is that the courts can decide that the seller is divesting and hiding assets and the courts can actually order the sale reversed. Since the seller probably really is attempting to hide assets so that they can pretend they have no money to pay judgements, child support, outstanding debts, you, as the buyer, might find yourself holding the losing end of the stick.

Figure the odds that the seller will still have all the money you gave him, especially considering that he is in the process of hiding all his assets.