Title Issues: Fixing Liens, Easements, Encroachments & Title Fraud

How Title Defects Happen — and Why Most Are Curable

Title is the legal record of who owns land and what claims sit against it, maintained in provincial land title/registry offices in Canada and county recorders in the US. Defects enter that record constantly: a paid-off mortgage never formally discharged, a contractor's lien from a renovation dispute, an easement granted decades ago, a fence built two feet over the surveyed line, or — the worst case — a forged transfer registered by a fraudster. Most defects are administrative debris, cured with a discharge, release, or corrective registration. The harder cases involve competing real interests: a neighbour genuinely entitled to a right of way, a lienholder genuinely owed money.

The universal first step is evidence: an up-to-date title search plus copies of the actual registered instruments, ordered by registration number. A remarkable share of title 'disputes' resolve once someone reads what the easement or covenant actually says, where it actually applies, and whether it has expired by its own terms or by statute — construction liens in particular die automatically if the claimant misses short statutory deadlines to sue and register.

Title Insurance: What It Covers and How to Claim

Title insurance is a one-time-premium policy that covers losses from defects that existed but were unknown when you bought: fraud and forgery, liens left by prior owners, encroachments an up-to-date survey would have revealed, lack of legal access, and (on many residential policies) unpermitted work done by previous owners. It is nearly universal in Canadian residential closings — where it largely replaced up-to-date surveys — and standard in US closings, where lenders require their own policy and owners can buy a companion owner's policy. It does not cover defects you knew about at purchase, or problems you create yourself afterwards.

Claims have a discipline: notify the insurer in writing promptly upon discovering the defect, before paying lawyers or contractors, because the policy gives the insurer the right to choose its response — defend your title in court, cure the defect, or pay your loss up to policy limits. Owners who fix first and claim later often find those costs unrecoverable. If you cannot find your policy, the lawyer or title company that closed your purchase can identify the insurer; policies remain in force for as long as you (and often your heirs) own the property.

Liens, Easements, and Covenants: The Cure Paths

Liens are cured by payment and discharge, by paying the disputed amount into court to vacate the lien while the fight continues (standard for construction liens, so a sale or project can proceed), or by challenging validity — construction and mechanic's lien statutes in every province and state impose strict deadlines that claimants frequently miss. Property tax liens rank ahead of nearly everything and are simply paid. Judgment liens follow the debtor: if the debt belongs to a prior owner, your title insurer or the lawyer who closed your purchase is usually on the hook, not you.

Easements and restrictive covenants run with the land, binding every subsequent owner, so the cure is rarely unilateral. Realistic options: negotiate a release or relocation with the benefiting party (usually for compensation), apply to court to modify or discharge instruments that are obsolete or whose purpose is spent — several provinces and states have statutory procedures for exactly this — or simply plan around them. Encroachments settle along a spectrum: registered encroachment agreements, easements, boundary line adjustments, or removal, with a current survey as the non-negotiable starting evidence. A real estate lawyer can usually tell you within one meeting which path fits your instrument and jurisdiction.

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