A title commitment came back with a gap in the chain from 1987 to 1994 and the examiner cleared it without explanation.
That seven-year gap is exactly the window when a lot of refinances produced deeds of trust that got indexed under the wrong grantor name or recorded in the wrong county book, and some of those never got formally released. When an examiner clears a gap like that with no supporting document cited, the question worth asking before you accept the commitment is what they actually relied on. A statutory declaration of heirship, a court order, a recorded affidavit of surviving joint tenant, an adverse possession judgment, something has to be in the chain or in the commitment exceptions explaining why the gap is insurable. If the examiner pulled a deed from 1994 that recites consideration and describes a full conveyance from the last-known owner of record in 1987, that can carry the gap on its own in many states, but you want the commitment to say so. If the basis is just the examiner's judgment that nothing adverse showed up in the index search, that is a different level of comfort than a recorded instrument closing the gap. The underwriter's willingness to insure it does not tell you which situation you are in. A gap cleared by instrument and a gap cleared by absence of recorded objection both produce a clean commitment, but only one of them gives you a clean answer when a claimant shows up later. What did the examiner put in writing when you asked what covered the gap?
