How Title Insurance Works in Australia

First home buyers have a lot to learn when entering the housing market and taking out title insurance is yet another decision you’ll need to make along the way.

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What is title insurance?

Title insurance is specialised insurance designed to protect home buyers and homeowners from any risks that may arise during the conveyancing process and throughout the term of your ownership that affects the property title. It can cover anything from financial loss incurred by errors made by previous owners to identity theft.

How title insurance works

In Australia, your property comes with a title, which is a document that confirms legal ownership. During the conveyancing process, your solicitor will conduct a title search to make sure that the property has no competing ownership claims, there’s no outstanding debt such as unpaid rates and that the property’s boundaries are correct.

Once you have settled on your property, you may become exposed to risks to your title, however, and the title search will not necessarily reveal that something is amiss. Unfortunately for a homeowner, there are any number of issues that could potentially rear their ugly head sometime down the track, even years later.

If, for example, the previous owner added a carport or a septic tank that didn’t meet council building standards, all of a sudden you could find yourself with a building notice for thousands of dollars.

Unlike home and contents insurance, which protects your home and everything in it from damage or theft, title insurance protects the buyer from claims against the property itself.

Importantly, there are no restrictions on when you can take out title insurance in Australia, either before or long after settlement. The policy also lasts for as long as you own the property.

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What does title insurance cover?

Title insurance covers a range of things including:

An individual or group lodging a claim on the property title.
Someone claiming access rights to your property.
Boundary errors if someone encroaches on your land.
Government or council errors that may have resulted in past undercharging for council rates or land taxes.
Outstanding council rates and water rates.
Registration gaps.
Non-compliant building works, such as renovations conducted by previous owners with no council approval.
Mistakes in the conveyancing process that lead to conjecture about who the real owner is.
Lack of legal water supply or drainage to the property.
Any financial losses arising from fraud, forgery and identity theft.

The final point is important as it protects the owner against property fraud, which has become an increasingly big problem nationally, thanks to skyrocketing property prices and hackers targeting the settlement process. In worst-case scenarios, the rightful owners have had to prove their rightful ownership of a property or even been deprived of it.

Title insurance doesn’t cover things already covered by a home and contents policy, such as fire damage.

How much does title insurance cost?

Title insurance, which has only been available in Australia for about 12 years, is not compulsory like stamp duty or other government charges and consists of a one-off payment which varies depending on your property’s price and location. The cost will also vary, but only very slightly, depending on which state or territory your property is located in, due to the stamp duty attached to the cost.

Currently, there are only two title insurance providers operating in Australia – First Title and Stewart Title Limited, so it’s easy to compare their prices for houses, strata titled property, rural property and land, which are almost identical.

By way of example using both providers’ calculators, a First Title policy for a residential property in NSW valued at $500,000 attracts a fee of $450.70 including stamp duty and GST, While Stewart Title charges $450.07 for the same policy.

A policy for a $750,000 property from Stewart Title would set you back $600.08, which is only $150 more despite the jump in property value, which reveals that title insurance is not one of the larger expenses you will encounter in your property journey.

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Is title insurance worth it?

Every first home buyer should understand title insurance and ask themselves whether they need it based on their property’s cost and location.

Title insurance may seem like a relatively minor payment in the grand scheme of home ownership and it does consist of just one up-front payment, but once you factor in stamp duty, legal fees, home and contents insurance, a building inspection and possibly lenders mortgage insurance, it may seem like just one expense too many.

However, title insurance only involves a one-off payment of a few hundred dollars maximum so it’s much cheaper than things such as lenders mortgage insurance or home and contents insurance, and it protects you against a wide range of potential problems. Additionally, while the likelihood is that you won’t have to make a claim on your policy, like all insurance it provides extra peace of mind for a relatively small amount of money.

Title insurance is currently the only way to achieve the most comprehensive possible protection against risks that may affect the legal ownership of your property and your right to occupy and use the land, and it’s good for the entire period of your home ownership.

Before rushing to sign up you should, however, get your solicitor or a mortgage expert to explain what’s contained in the policy documents so you know exactly what it does and doesn’t cover.

About the Author

Alan Hartstein

Alan Hartstein has worked in publishing for over 25 years as a writer and editor across broadsheets, tabloids, magazines, trade publications and numerous forms of digital content. Alan was initially attracted to journalism through his love of words and their ability to make an impact in the world. Alan’s main areas of expertise are in business IT, financial services and fintech, but he also thoroughly enjoys writing comedy sketches and arts-related content, which can include everything from ballet and opera reviews to TV and movies. Alan is based in Sydney, Australia.

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