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Title Insurance

Title insurance protects you against challenges to the title to property by forking over legal fees and in an extreme case, compensating you for lost property. The boston.com article gives an estimate of $3.65 per $1000 of home value (which is somewhat steep, but it is a one time fee). You can get direct estimates of title insurance costs from insurers websites, e.g. First American. This Boston.com article says that even though Title Insurance is not regulated in Mass, the rates across companies are fairly uniform. A large chunk of the premium is apparently kick back to the lawyer. It's an annoying, big-ticket item - the cost of title insurance for both lender and buyer add up. We got it, but it felt like a scam.
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