Real Estate Title Standards of the Colorado Bar Association
| Publication year | 1988 |
| Pages | 1759 |
| Citation | Vol. 17 No. 9 Pg. 1759 |
1988, September, Pg. 1759. Real Estate Title Standards of The Colorado Bar Association
Nearly eighty years ago, the Colorado Supreme Court defined "marketable title" to real estate as "one without defects of which he [the purchaser] can lawfully complain."(fn1) The definition of "marketable title" was amplified in 1942 and restated as
This definition was further expanded in 1949 with the requirement that "title must be such as to make it reasonably certain that it will not be called into question in the future so as to subject the purchaser to the hazard of litigation with reference thereto."(fn3)a title that is reasonably free from such doubts as will affect the market value of the estate; one which a reasonably prudent person with knowledge of all the facts and their legal bearing would be willing to accept.(fn2)
Application of these tests to a specific title question often resulted in differing opinions when several attorneys were presented with the same title question. The problem facing the real estate bar is well-stated in the Introduction to Title Standards at the beginning of the 1987 Revision of the Real Estate Title Standards of the Colorado Bar Association ("CBA"):
The well-known proclivities of attorneys to act as rugged individualists have influenced their approach to rendering title opinions which accept title to real estate as marketable (sometimes called "Merchantable"), or reject it as unmarketable. The consequent differences of opinion were awkward at best and frequently embarrassing.
Title Standards were devised in the best tradition of western frontierism by consulting all shades of opinion and then reaching a common agreement on what a reasonably careful lawyer should require with respect to instruments in a chain of title.(fn4)
The Title Standards are intended to set forth specific questions concerning matters frequently encountered in determining marketability of real estate titles, together with well-reasoned answers that are acceptable to the Bar. Determining marketability based upon the Standards should help to avoid malpractice claims; however, to this author's knowledge the issue has yet to be determined.
A frequent question is whether Title Standards are needed since Colorado attorneys today...
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