Read Schedule B Part II First: Florida Lawyer on Title Commitments
A title commitment is the title company’s conditional promise to issue an insurance policy once a specific list of requirements gets satisfied. It is not the policy itself. It previews the coverage you will get, spells out what has to happen before closing, and lists exceptions the policy will never cover. The moment you get it, read Schedule B Part II first for exceptions, then Schedule B Part I for outstanding requirements.
TL;DR:
- The effective date of the commitment is crucial, as any recording after it creates a gap that may require an updated search before closing.
- Schedule B Part I lists strict requirements like payoff letters, lien releases, and tax payments that must be confirmed and cleared prior to closing.
- Buyers should scrutinize Schedule B Part II exceptions, especially special ones like easements, covenants, or liens, and negotiate or request endorsements if needed.
- The commitment only reflects records up to its effective date, so delays can produce new issues requiring revisions before the final policy issues.
- An attorney’s review can help identify and negotiate problematic exceptions, ensuring better protection and enforcement of title contingencies.
Schedule A: What It Lists and What You Need to Verify
Schedule A is the transaction’s fact sheet. Most commitments follow the 2021 ALTA Commitment form, which organizes this section the same way from one title company to the next, so you always know where to look.
You will find the effective date, the proposed insured party or parties, the policy amount, the current record owner, the legal description of the property, and how title will be vested after closing.
Each entry deserves a second look before you move on.
The effective date matters more than it seems. It marks the cutoff for the public-records search, and anything recorded after that date creates a gap period that may require an updated search closer to closing.
Cross-check these items against your purchase contract:
- Your name (and your spouse’s, if applicable) matches exactly as the proposed insured
- The policy amount matches your purchase price or loan amount
- The legal description matches the survey and the contract, not just the street address
- The vesting language reflects how you actually intend to hold title
A typo in a legal description can chain into years of confusion. Catching it now costs nothing.
Schedule B, Part I: The Requirements Standing Between You and Closing
Schedule B Part I is the to-do list the title company will not budge on. Nothing on this list gets resolved, no policy gets issued. Requirements typically include:
- Payoff of the seller’s existing mortgage, confirmed by a payoff letter from the current lender
- Release of recorded liens, including judgment liens, tax liens, or old mortgage satisfactions that never got filed
- Payment of outstanding property taxes or assessments tied to the parcel
- Delivery of a properly executed and recordable deed from seller to buyer
- Payment of the title insurance premium, usually due at or before closing
Escrow typically clears these in sequence. The seller’s payoff and lien releases usually get handled first, often weeks before the closing date, while the deed and premium payment happen at the closing table itself. Your lender adds its own requirements to the list if you are financing, like proof of homeowner’s insurance or a satisfactory survey.
Track this list yourself instead of assuming someone else is watching it. Ask your closing agent for a status update on each requirement a few days before closing, not the morning of.
Pro Tip: Ask specifically whether any lien release has been recorded or merely requested. A payoff letter promising a release is not the same as a release that has cleared the county recorder’s office.
Schedule B, Part II: Exceptions You Cannot Ignore
Schedule B Part II lists what the policy will not cover, and it is the section buyers skip most often, to their own detriment. Failing to review these exceptions can leave you unprotected for problems that were sitting in plain sight the whole time.
Standard exceptions appear in nearly every commitment regardless of the property: matters an accurate survey would reveal, rights of parties in possession, unrecorded easements, and mechanic’s liens not yet filed of record. These are boilerplate, and most title companies will remove or narrow them if you provide a current survey or an owner’s affidavit.
Special exceptions are the ones tied to this specific property, and they deserve real scrutiny:
- Utility easements crossing the buildable area of the lot
- Restrictive covenants limiting how you can use or modify the property
- Homeowners association liens, dues, or architectural restrictions
- Mineral or oil and gas reservations held by a prior owner
An easement running through your intended pool site or a covenant banning the fence you already bought are the kind of details that surface here first, before you own the problem.
You have options when a special exception threatens your plans. Negotiate with the seller to clear it before closing, request an endorsement that carves out coverage for that specific risk, or ask the seller to fund a fix as a closing condition. When an exception looks tangled, like an old mineral reservation with unclear boundaries, underwriting approval combined with a satisfactory survey or affidavit can sometimes remove it entirely.
Pro Tip: If an exception references a recorded document by book and page number, request a copy before closing. A one-page easement description tells you far more than a vague reference ever will.
Conditions, the Gap Period, and What Happens Next
The Conditions section is the fine print governing the commitment itself, not the property. It sets liability limits, states when the commitment expires, and outlines the procedures both sides follow if something changes before closing.
Here is the part buyers underestimate: the commitment only reflects records through its effective date. If your closing slips by a few weeks, the title company generally has to update the search to cover that gap, since a new lien or judgment could get recorded in the interim.
That update can produce an amended commitment with new items in Schedule B. Do not assume the document you reviewed at contract signing is the same one governing your actual closing.
Once the deed records and every requirement clears, the commitment retires and the title company issues your actual policy, permanent, unconditional, and tied to the final recorded transaction. If you want to see exactly what that final coverage will look like before you get there, ask for a pro forma policy. It shows the finished product in advance, minus the guesswork.
How to Review Your Title Commitment: A Step-by-Step Checklist
Work through the document in order, the same way the title company built it.
- Confirm Schedule A against your purchase contract: names, amounts, and legal description.
- Resolve every item in Schedule B Part I, checking off payoffs, lien releases, and tax payments as escrow confirms them.
- Evaluate each Schedule B Part II exception against your intended use of the property and your survey.
- Flag anything inconsistent and raise it with your title company or closing agent immediately, not the week of closing.
Ask these questions directly, because buyers rarely raise them unprompted:
- Who is paying for the owner’s policy, you or the seller?
- Which exceptions can be removed, and which just need an endorsement?
- What is the realistic timeline for the outstanding lien releases?
- Would a new or updated survey change any of these exceptions?
Certain findings justify pulling in an attorney before you sign anything else: an unresolved judgment against a prior owner, a legal description that does not match the survey, or a special exception that blocks improvements you already planned. These are not the kind of issues that fix themselves after closing.
Owner’s Policy vs. Lender’s Policy: Two Different Protections
A single title commitment can set up two separate policies, and buyers frequently confuse them. The lender’s policy protects the mortgage company’s financial interest in the property up to the loan amount, and if you are financing the purchase, your lender will require it as a condition of the loan. It offers you, the buyer, no personal protection at all.
The owner’s policy protects your equity and your ownership rights, and it is optional in most transactions, though it is common to recommend this to clients closing on Florida property. Without one, a title defect discovered after closing, an old lien, a forged prior deed, an heir nobody accounted for, could leave you paying out of pocket to defend your own ownership.
The commitment itself often addresses both. You may see two separate policy amounts in Schedule A, one matching your loan and one matching your purchase price, because the lender’s coverage typically shrinks as you pay down the mortgage, while an owner’s policy amount stays fixed at the purchase price for as long as you own the property.
Cost allocation between the two varies by custom and negotiation, which is exactly why it belongs on your list of closing questions. In many Florida transactions, the seller customarily pays for the owner’s policy while the buyer covers the lender’s policy, but the purchase contract controls, not habit. Read your contract’s title insurance clause before assuming who owes what.
How Title Commitments Protect Both Buyers and Lenders
The commitment functions as an early warning system. It surfaces problems while there is still time to fix them, rather than after the deed has already recorded and the deal is done.
For lenders, the commitment confirms that their collateral, your property, has a clean enough title to justify the loan. If a judgment lien or an old unreleased mortgage shows up in Schedule B Part I, the lender will not fund until it clears. That protects the bank’s position, but it also protects you, since you are the one who would otherwise inherit that lien.
For buyers, the real protection comes from paying attention to Schedule B Part II. The commitment tells you, in writing, exactly what will not be covered once you own the property. That is your chance to negotiate, get an endorsement, or walk away, options that disappear the moment you close.
The commitment also protects both parties from surprises tied to the search itself. Because the effective date locks in what the public record showed as of a specific day, everyone involved, buyer, seller, lender, and title company, is working from the same factual snapshot rather than competing assumptions about what liens or claims exist.
When and Why Title Commitments Get Updated or Reissued
A title commitment is not a static document once it is issued. Several situations force a title company to revisit and revise it before closing.
The most common trigger is a delayed closing. Since the commitment only reflects records through its effective date, any closing that slips past that date creates a gap the title company has to fill with an updated search. A new lien, a recorded judgment, or even a change in ownership vesting during that window will show up in an amended commitment.
Changes to the transaction itself trigger updates too. If the purchase price changes, if a co-buyer gets added or removed, or if the loan amount shifts after underwriting, Schedule A needs to reflect the new numbers. Title companies do not quietly edit the old commitment. They reissue it.
Curing a Schedule B Part II exception also produces a new version. Once a seller clears a lien or a buyer provides a satisfactory survey that resolves a standard exception, the title company drops that item and circulates an updated commitment showing the exception gone. Treat every reissued commitment as a fresh document worth reading in full, not a formality to skim past because you already reviewed the first one.
Why a Real Estate Attorney Can Add Value When Reviewing a Title Commitment
Reading the exceptions is one thing. Knowing which ones are worth fighting is another. An attorney can interpret an ambiguous easement description, negotiate with the title company for deletions or endorsements, and coordinate a lien release or a quiet title action when a defect will not clear through ordinary means.
That involvement matters most after closing, when it is far harder to fix. A defect caught and negotiated before the deed records is a solved problem. The same defect discovered a year later, after you have sold or refinanced, can become expensive litigation. Attorney review at the commitment stage is what keeps your purchase contract’s title contingencies enforceable instead of theoretical.
— Oldham Law PLLC
Title Review and Closing Support From Oldham Law PLLC
Reading a fifteen-page commitment while you are also packing boxes and coordinating movers is not a fair fight, and most buyers do not catch every exception that deserves a second look. Some law firms review title commitments as part of real estate closings in the Tampa Bay area, checking Schedule A details against your contract, tracking Schedule B Part I requirements through escrow, and flagging exceptions worth negotiating before you sign anything.
If you have a commitment in hand and something looks off, or you simply want a second set of eyes before closing day, bring the commitment itself, your purchase contract, and your survey to a consultation. We will walk through each document together and tell you plainly what needs attention and what does not. Reach out through Oldham Law PLLC to set up a review before your closing date locks in.
Sources
For readers who want to go deeper on the mechanics covered here, these sources informed this article’s explanation of the ALTA commitment structure and review process.
- What is a title commitment and how do you read it? – Title
- Reviewing and dealing with title-commitment exceptions before buying a home – Nolo
This article is general information, not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer. Consult a qualified legal professional about your own circumstances before acting on anything here.
FAQ
Who Typically Pays for the Title Commitment and Owner’s Policy?
Custom varies by local practice, but the purchase contract controls, and in many Florida transactions the seller pays for the owner’s policy while the buyer covers the lender’s policy. Confirm this in your contract rather than assuming.
What Should I Do With a Title Commitment Once I Receive It?
Review Schedule A for accuracy, track every item in Schedule B Part I until it is resolved, and evaluate each exception in Schedule B Part II against your intended use of the property before closing.
How Do I Read a Title Commitment Report?
Work through it in order: Schedule A for transaction facts, Schedule B Part I for requirements that must be cleared, Schedule B Part II for exceptions the policy won’t cover, and Conditions for the document’s own limits and expiration terms.
What Is the Difference Between an Owner’s Policy and a Lender’s Policy?
A lender’s policy protects the mortgage company up to the loan amount and is usually required by the lender, while an owner’s policy protects your equity and is optional, though strongly recommended.
Can Exceptions in Schedule B Part II Be Removed?
Some can, often by providing a current survey or an owner’s affidavit, and title companies may issue endorsements to narrow coverage gaps, though more complex exceptions may need underwriting approval or attorney negotiation.
