"Is the Person Selling You the Home Actually on Title? The Check Your Lender Has to Run"

Your purchase contract has a handful of signatures on the last page: yours, maybe your spouse's, and the seller's. Across town, in a county office most clients never visit, there is a recorded deed for that same home with a name typed on it. Before your loan closes, somebody on my side of the file has to put those two names next to each other and confirm they belong to the same person.

Your lender has to confirm the seller owns the home before the loan closes. The seller named on your purchase contract must be the Owner of Record, the person or company whose name is on the recorded deed at the county. Freddie Mac's guide requires the check on conventional purchases, and FHA has the same rule. If the names do not match, the lender investigates and keeps the proof.

I'm Jeff Moran, a mortgage broker in Bluffton, South Carolina, originating since 1996, NMLS #483943, through C2 Financial Corporation, licensed in fifteen states. This check runs quietly in the background of your file. I'd still like you to know it exists, because it protects the purchase itself, and it matters more than usual on one kind of purchase: a vacant lot.

What does "owner of record" mean?

The owner of record is whoever holds title according to the public land records where the property is located. Every county keeps an office for this, and the name on the door changes from state to state: the register of deeds, the recorder, the county clerk. The most recent deed recorded there says who owns the property today.

That name can be a person, a married couple, a company such as an LLC, a trust, or the estate of someone who has passed away. All of those are ordinary ways to hold a home. A purchase contract is a private agreement between you and the seller. The deed is the public record, and that is what your lender and the closing attorney or title company read.

The check your lender runs on a purchase

On a conventional loan, the rule comes from Section 5601.7 of the Freddie Mac Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide, Seller verification of subject property Owner of Record, revised 05/06/2026. For a purchase, the lender has to verify that:

The property seller listed on the sales contract is the Owner of Record of the subject property; or If the transaction involves the sale of land separate from the dwelling, the property seller listed on the sales contract for the land is the Owner of Record for the land

Two words in that guide need translating. Freddie Mac writes "Seller" to mean the lender, because the lender sells the finished loan to Freddie Mac. It writes "property seller" to mean the person selling you the home. On a refinance, the same section has the lender verify that you are an owner of record of the home being refinanced.

In practice the work lands on my desk in two documents. The title commitment comes back from the closing attorney or title company with the current owner's name on it, taken from the recorded deed. The appraisal comes back with the owner of public record on its first page, because the appraiser pulls the same county record. I read both against the seller's name on your contract, and if all three agree, the check is done. How an appraisal is built and what the appraiser looks up is its own learn page.

Buying a vacant lot, or land sold separately from the home

The second half of Freddie Mac's purchase rule covers purchases where the land and the home change hands separately. The usual examples are a lot you buy so a builder can put a home on it, or a manufactured home bought from a dealer while the land comes from someone else. In those files the lender verifies that the person selling you the land is the owner of record for the land, because the home may not have a recorded deed yet.

A bare lot deserves this check more than a finished home does. It often has no mortgage on it, the owner's mailing address is somewhere else, and nobody drives past it every day. The National Association of Realtors has warned its members about a pattern built on exactly that (NAR, Scammers Are Plotting to Sell Vacant Land Fraudulently). Someone poses as the owner of a vacant lot, lists it, and tries to close quickly, usually from out of the area and with a notary they arrange themselves. The owner of record check is the step in the loan file that puts the real owner's name next to the one on the contract.

If you are buying a home and a separate parcel together, the check runs on each parcel. My article on buying a home and the lot next door with one mortgage covers how the two parcels have to be described.

Paying off a land contract with your mortgage

The third row of Freddie Mac's table covers a client who has been buying a home on a land contract, sometimes called a contract for deed, and wants a mortgage to pay the seller off. There the lender verifies that the person selling to you on the recorded land contract (the vendor) is also the owner of record, and that you are the person buying on that same recorded contract (the vendee). If the contract was never recorded, please tell me at the start. My article on what to compare before you sign a seller-financed purchase covers why recording that paperwork matters.

What happens if the seller is not the owner of record?

The lender does not stop at the mismatch. Section 5601.7(b) says the lender "must investigate the circumstances of the transaction to ensure the transaction is legitimate." If the sale is legitimate, the lender keeps evidence of it in the file, and the guide lists what that evidence may include:

• The appraiser's analysis and conclusions in the appraisal report

• A property sales history report

• A copy of the recorded deed

• A copy of a property tax bill

• A copy of property title information indicating legal ownership of the property (e.g., title property report summary, title commitment or binder, attorney opinion of title letter)

Most mismatches have an ordinary explanation, and the paperwork that resolves them usually already exists. Some common ones:

• The deed is in a parent's name and the seller is the child. The parent has passed away and the deed was never updated. Depending on how title was held and the state's law, the fix is a recorded death certificate and an affidavit, or an estate proceeding. My article on getting a mortgage on a probate or estate-sale home covers what the court's calendar does to yours.
• The seller is an LLC or a trust and a person signed the contract. The lender and title need the document that gives that person authority to sign: an operating agreement or a resolution for a company, a trust certificate for a trust. The owner of record is still the company or the trust, which is fine.
• A bank or servicer is selling a home it took back, and its deed has not recorded yet. The bank's foreclosure deed is the proof. Sometimes the owner handed the home back to the lender instead of going through foreclosure. In that case the proof is a deed in lieu of foreclosure, which is the deed the owner signed to do it. Title will want whichever one applies recorded before closing. Financing a foreclosure purchase is its own article.

In each case the investigation is finding the document that connects the name on the deed to the name on your contract, and once it is in the file the loan moves on.

This is a different question from a lien or a gap turning up in the title search. That one gets answered after the title commitment arrives, and I walked through it in a title issue came up before closing, who fixes it and by when. The owner of record check comes first and asks a simpler thing: is the seller the owner at all.

FHA has the same rule

The FHA version is in HUD Handbook 4000.1, Section II.A.1.b, General Mortgage Insurance Eligibility, revised 06/27/2025:

To be eligible for a mortgage insured by FHA, a Property must be purchased from the owner of record. The transaction may not involve any sale or assignment of the sales contract.

On an FHA loan, the contract has to be between you and the owner of record directly, so a contract someone else signed and then assigned to you does not work. The same section holds FHA's 90-day resale rule, and my article on using an FHA loan on a recently flipped home covers the dates that rule measures.

The steps you can take before you write the offer

None of this requires you to do the lender's job. It does help to walk in knowing what the county says.

1. You can look up the parcel on the county's website. Nearly every county assessor's site or online property map lets you search by address and shows the owner's name, mailing address, and the date of the last recorded sale, for free. If that name matches the seller on the listing, you are done. If it does not, you have a good question for the listing side, and the answer is usually one of the situations above.
2. Your agent can ask how the seller holds title. That means asking whether the seller is an individual, a company, a trust or an estate, and whether the listing agent has met the seller in person. On a vacant lot, it is also fair to ask for the recorded deed and the most recent tax bill up front, since both are public documents.
3. Please send me the fully signed purchase contract, with every page and any addenda, the day it is signed. The title search gets ordered right away, the commitment comes back with the owner's name on it, and if anything needs documenting we have the whole contract period to do it.

Mistakes that cost time at this stage

Treating a company or trust seller as a red flag. A seller who holds the home in an LLC or a living trust is ordinary. The file needs the authority document for whoever signs, and that is all.

Letting a low price stand in for proof. A lot priced well under the parcels around it, with a seller who wants to close in a week and handle the notary remotely, matches what NAR has warned about. When you see that combination, it is worth looking up the county record before you write the offer.

An illustration, with invented details

The names and numbers below are made up to show how the check works.

Say a client goes under contract on a three-bedroom home, and the contract names the seller as Linda. The title commitment and the appraisal both show the owners of record as Robert and Linda. Linda's agent explains that Robert passed away two years ago. The closing attorney looks at how the deed was worded, asks for a certified death certificate and an affidavit, and records both ahead of closing. The file now holds the recorded deed, the death certificate and the title commitment, and the loan closes on the original date.

Now say another client finds a half-acre lot priced at $45,000 where similar lots have been selling for $70,000 to $80,000. The seller is out of state, wants a two-week close, and offers to arrange the notary. The county record shows an owner who bought the lot in 2009 with a mailing address in another part of the country. The title company mails its standard notice to that address, and the actual owner calls back to say the lot is not for sale. The contract is cancelled before any money moves.

Your next step

If you are getting ready to make an offer, the useful first step is seeing the numbers for your own scenario. Run your numbers and you will see rates for your scenario, your debt ratio and your closing costs, with no credit pull and no account. Once you are under contract, please send me the fully signed purchase contract, with every page and any addenda, right away, and the rest of this check runs on my desk.

Common questions

Does my lender check that the seller actually owns the home?

Yes. On a conventional purchase loan, Freddie Mac's Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide, Section 5601.7, requires the lender to verify that the property seller on the sales contract is the Owner of Record. FHA has the same requirement in HUD Handbook 4000.1, Section II.A.1.b. The lender reads the owner's name on the title commitment and the appraisal against your contract.

What does "owner of record" mean when buying a home?

The owner of record is the person or company named on the most recently recorded deed in the land records of the county where the property is. It can be an individual, a married couple, an LLC, a trust or an estate. A listing or a contract is a private agreement; the recorded deed is the public record.

What happens if the seller on my contract is not the owner of record?

The lender has to investigate to confirm the sale is legitimate, and then keep evidence in the file, such as the recorded deed, a property tax bill, a property sales history report or the title commitment. Most mismatches have an ordinary explanation, such as a deceased parent still on the deed, a company or trust seller, or a bank whose foreclosure deed has not recorded yet.

Does the owner of record rule apply when I buy a vacant lot?

Yes. Freddie Mac's rule says that when land is sold separately from the dwelling, the lender verifies that the seller on the land contract is the owner of record for the land. A vacant lot often has no mortgage and an owner who lives somewhere else, which is why trade groups have warned about sellers posing as the owner of land they do not own.

How can I check who owns a property before I make an offer?

You can search the address on the assessor's website or online property map for the county where the property is. The record shows the owner's name, the owner's mailing address and the date of the last recorded sale, and it is free. If the name does not match the seller on the listing, that is a good question for the listing agent, and the answer is usually a company, a trust, an estate or a recent life event.