Turnaround times for getting title commitments or abstracting work out of urban vs. rural areas can be very different. Here are some of the differences you can expect between property in urban vs. rural areas.
Urban vs. Rural Property
In larger metropolitan areas it’s usually going to be a little bit quicker getting title commitments or search work back, but it can be much slower in rural areas. For example, western North Dakota can be very slow because of the oil boom and the limited number of employees who work in the abstracting companies in the region.
When we’re dealing with rural property – whether it’s in a small town, agricultural land, things of that nature – often those counties only have one resource from which to obtain your title search work. That can cause quite a bottleneck because you’re waiting on that one person or small company to complete your particular search work. It’s a first-come-first-served circumstance. If your land is in a rural area you can expect a little longer wait time for the search work to come in and therefore the commitment to be circulated.
Real property practice is a very localized type of practice. Practices can differ between states and even within a single state.
For example, in Illinois you’ve got one set of practices in the Chicago area, and another set of completely different standards and practices outside of the greater Chicago area. So it is always interesting when you’re working in an unfamiliar jurisdiction because you can’t expect it to always be consistent. That can feel a bit strange because your title insurance policy in Minnesota looks very similar to your title insurance policy in Illinois, and most other states. Yet the process to obtain it can be very different.