Title Insurance

An Atlanta woman who stole five properties in middle Georgia including a family's second home, has learned her sentence. Angela Spradley was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2025 after using forged and fraudulent documents to get land — including a family's Macon home — transferred into her name, an indictment and incident report shows. 

In March 2022, a Wilkinson County couple realized their Macon home was stolen when they showed up one day only to find their house boarded up along with a stove and construction materials missing. The home also had a realtor's box in their front yard that they hadn't set up.
When they checked the property records, it said that they "gifted" the property to Spradley, who then sold it to another company. If these homeowners had purchased owner’s title insurance, they could have kept their property without incurring any costs.

An Atlanta couple found themselves in a devastating situation after purchasing their first home, discovering it was burdened with undisclosed materialman’s liens totaling $80,000. The builder had filed bankruptcy and the couple had no way to pay the liens. Without title insurance in place, the Atlanta couple had no protection against the hidden liens and were left to deal with the legal and financial fallout themselves.

In North Atlanta, a group of homeowners found themselves in a troubling legal and financial predicament after purchasing homes in a subdivision that had been developed on land deeded years earlier by an estate to a developer. At the time, everything appeared legitimate—buyers closed on their homes, construction moved forward, and the neighborhood took shape. However, an unexpected issue later surfaced: one of the heirs to the estate had not been properly notified during the probate process and was never given the opportunity to assert his legal interest in the property.

Once this heir became aware of the situation, he filed a claim to assert his ownership rights, arguing that he had a lawful claim to the land on which the subdivision was built. Legally, he was entitled to compensation for his share of the property. This created a ripple effect throughout the community. Every homeowner in the subdivision who did not have owner’s title insurance was forced to pay the heir for the value of their land as it existed before construction—a significant and unexpected financial burden.

In a troubling case in Georgia, a builder constructed an entire street of homes in a neighborhood where portions of several houses were mistakenly built on neighboring lots. The issue, caused by improper surveys or boundary errors, went unnoticed during construction. However, the situation became far more complicated when the builder subsequently filed for bankruptcy, leaving homeowners to resolve the problem on their own.

As the boundary issues came to light, affected homeowners discovered that parts of their homes—such as garages, driveways, or even living spaces—encroached onto their neighbor’s land. Since the builder was no longer in business, these homeowners had no recourse against the party responsible for the mistake. For those who had not purchased owner’s title insurance, the consequences were costly. They were forced to negotiate directly with their neighbors, often paying them to deed over the portions of land on which their homes were partially built. In addition to these settlement payments, the homeowners also had to cover the cost of surveys, legal documentation, and title corrections to fix the problem.

In a complex and emotionally charged case in Georgia, a single mother purchased what she believed was her dream home, only to later discover that the legal ownership of the property was in dispute due to a mistake involving overlapping property descriptions and an elderly seller who suffered from dementia.

The situation began when the original property owner, a gentleman who owned two separate parcels of land, entered into a sales contract for the first parcel. However, the real estate agent who prepared the sales contract mistakenly included both parcels in the legal description. When the first buyer closed on the transaction, the closing attorney—relying on the contract—correctly conveyed both parcels, because both lots were listed in the contract, even though only one was intended to be sold.

Shortly afterward, a different attorney closed a second sale with the single mother for the second parcel, unaware that it had already been conveyed in the prior transaction. At the time of her closing, the first deed had not yet been recorded, so the second closing proceeded under the belief that title to the second property was still available. About a year later, the issue came to light when the first buyer discovered that they legally owned both properties under their recorded deed. At that point, the original seller, now suffering from advanced dementia and unable to testify about his intent, could not clarify what he meant to convey in either sale.

The result was a legal dispute, with the first buyer demanding that the single mother either pay rent or vacate the home, claiming rightful ownership based on the recorded deed. Thankfully, the single mother had purchased owner’s title insurance at closing. Her policy covered the full cost of defending her ownership, including legal fees and eventual settlement payments to resolve the dispute. The title insurer stepped in, funded the litigation, and paid the amount ultimately required to compensate the first buyer, who had legal—but unintended—ownership of the home

In one of the most extraordinary and tragic real estate title disputes in Georgia, a chain of events involving murder, inheritance, and a complete legal failure of title left multiple unsuspecting homeowners at risk of losing their property. Fortunately, the most recent owner was protected—thanks to an owner’s title insurance policy.

The story began with a husband and wife who owned multiple rental properties as joint tenants with rights of survivorship, a form of ownership where, upon the death of one owner, the surviving owner automatically receives full title to the property. Tragically, the wife was murdered, and based on the legal assumption that her death was natural or accidental, the properties passed to her husband by operation of law under survivorship rights. Later, the husband remarried, and disturbingly, his second wife was also murdered. Following her death, an investigation revealed that the husband had murdered both spouses.

The estate of the second wife brought a wrongful death action against the husband, which ultimately led to a settlement agreement requiring him to deed a specific property to her estate. That estate later sold the property to a third party, beginning a chain of ownership transfers over the next decade. Eventually, the home was sold multiple times, and each new owner assumed the title was clear.

About ten years after the original judgment, the current owner attempted to sell the property. During the routine title review, the buyer’s attorney noticed a “satisfied judgment” against the husband. While this judgment no longer clouded the title, it raised enough suspicion for the attorney to investigate further. His research uncovered the original murder of the first wife, who had co-owned the property as a joint tenant. Under long-established legal principles, a joint tenant cannot benefit from murdering their co-tenant—a doctrine known as the “slayer rule”. As a result, the husband never legally acquired full title to the property after the first wife's death.
This revelation caused a complete failure of title. The husband's original deed transferring the property to the second wife's estate was legally invalid because he never had title to convey. That defect carried through to every subsequent sale, including the current owner—who now found themselves holding a home to which they had no legal ownership.

Fortunately, the current owner had purchased an owner’s title insurance policy at the time of their closing. The title insurer investigated the claim and agreed that the defect constituted a covered loss. The policy paid the full value of the home to the estate of the first wife, who had the rightful claim to the property. This payment cleared the title and allowed the current owner to retain the home or proceed with a valid sale.

This case is a striking example of how title issues can emerge decades later, even in properties that have changed hands multiple times. No buyer, no matter how diligent, could have uncovered the full truth in public records or predicted a hidden legal flaw based on a criminal act. Yet, because the current owner was protected by title insurance, they were spared from financial ruin.

A Middle Georgia couple faced an unexpected and costly issue after building their new home—they discovered that an underground utility line ran directly beneath their garage, making it impossible to complete their planned property improvements and requiring that they move and rebuild their detached garage. Upon further investigation, they learned that this utility line was part of an easement that had not been disclosed during the purchase of the property. Although easements are typically identified during the title search process, in this case, the easement was either undisclosed, unrecorded, or simply missed, creating a serious obstacle for the homeowners. Because the homeowners did not purchase an owner’s title policy, the cost of rebuilding their garage was fully paid by them. 

Fraud and forgery are among the most serious and difficult-to-detect title risks that can affect a real estate transaction—even when every precaution has been taken. These hidden title hazards may remain completely undiscovered until after closing, long after the buyer has taken possession of the property. While the primary goal of a title search is to eliminate such risks, no system is foolproof. Fraudsters are becoming increasingly adept at pretending to be owners of property.

A powerful real-world example highlights the importance of this coverage. An innocent buyer purchased a home from what appeared to be the rightful seller. Everything seemed in order. However, after the sale, a gentleman from out of town—the true owner of the property—filed a lawsuit, claiming he had never sold the land. It was soon uncovered that a fraudster had forged a deed, transferring the property to a fictitious person, assumed that identity, and listed the property for sale. The scam artist had even used a phony notary identity on the forged documents. They chose the property precisely because the true owners lived elsewhere and had held title for many years without activity, making it unlikely anyone would notice the fraudulent transfer right away.

Because the buyer had purchased an owner’s title insurance policy, the title company stepped in to cover the legal defense costs and ultimately provided a monetary settlement to resolve the ownership dispute. The buyer was spared from devastating financial loss and legal uncertainty. Had the buyer not purchased title insurance, they could have lost both the property and their investment, through no fault of their own.