Stuart Stark

The answer to that is no. We in the United States don't have a system where you can go up and look at an official owner of a particular property. Instead, we just have a registry, a recording system in which anytime there's a transfer, the transfer is recorded.

But those registries are not any certification of ownership. There is just an ability to look at deeds to particular parcels of land.

Like, can any of us do it? It's not as easy as it sounds. It's not as if you look up your parcel of land and see who owns it. What you have to do is look to see, all right, when did my seller acquire title? From whom? Did that person acquire title from somebody else? Maybe there was a death and you'd have to look at probate records. You have to make sure that there are no outstanding mortgages.

And that's a lot of searching. It's a lot of work for an ordinary person to do.

Well, it is to some extent, but it's a system that we've had for decades. couple hundred years.

They've done all the work, right?

So anything they can get out of the homeowner is basically gravy.