When your Landopia note pays off and title transfers to you, the deed that lands in your name is a warranty deed unless your specific contract notes otherwise. The warranty deed is the strongest deed a buyer can receive in a US land transaction. Most online land sellers default to weaker deeds. We don’t, and this page covers why that matters.
A deed is the legal document that transfers ownership of a parcel from one party to another. There are several kinds, and they aren’t equal. A warranty deed is the version that says the seller stands behind the title: the parcel is free of undisclosed claims, liens, or encumbrances, and if anything title-related comes up later that wasn’t disclosed at the time of transfer, the seller is on the hook to make it right.
That’s the deed type we deliver on the vast majority of Landopia parcels. The buyer who paid off a note last year gets the same warranty as the buyer paying one off seven years from now. The warranty isn’t an upsell or a premium tier. It’s the standard.
We do this because owner-financed land is a long-relationship business. A buyer who’s making payments to us for five or seven years deserves to know that what we hand them at the finish line is clean. The warranty deed is how we put that promise in writing.
Here’s a plain-English look at the four deed types you’re most likely to encounter buying raw land, ranked from strongest buyer protection to weakest.
If you’re shopping owner-financed land elsewhere and the seller isn’t clear about which deed type you’ll receive at title transfer, ask. The answer changes what you’re actually buying.
A title problem can date from any owner in the parcel’s history. Only the full warranty deed reaches back through all of them.
We can stand behind the title on a warranty deed because we do the work before the parcel enters our inventory. Every Landopia parcel runs through our proprietary due diligence process before we’ll write a check to acquire it.
The work is similar to what a title company does before a closing, except we do it ourselves, on every parcel, before we’ll write the check. We acquire most parcels on a warranty deed ourselves, which means the seller stood behind the title to us. We then stand behind the title to you when we sell the parcel forward.
Going back to confirm a clean ownership history.
Confirms the parcel is current with the county.
Confirms no outstanding claims against the parcel.
Parcel boundaries checked against county records.
Confirmation that the seller has clear authority to convey title.
When your final note payment clears, the parcel transfers to your name. We handle the paperwork and the cleanup so the parcel comes to you ready to own outright. Specifically:
Deed preparation at title transfer is on us.
The deed is recorded with the county so the public record reflects you as the owner. We cover the recording fees.
Whatever the parcel owes the county in property taxes is brought current at transfer. You don’t inherit a tax bill.
If the parcel sits in an HOA or POA, those dues are brought current at transfer too.
Unless your specific contract notes otherwise, the deed you receive is a full warranty deed.
You don’t pay anything extra at the finish line. The parcel becomes yours, free and clear.
A buyer who pays on a note for five or seven years is doing it for the deed at the end. If the deed that lands is a quitclaim with no warranties, the long-game ownership story falls apart. The buyer kept their end of the deal; the seller didn’t keep theirs.
That’s why we set up the warranty deed as the default. Most online land sellers won’t make this commitment because warranty deeds put them on the hook if a title issue surfaces years after the fact. We make the commitment because we do the due diligence up front, we acquire most parcels on warranty ourselves, and we’d rather stand behind the title than skate on a weaker deed.
The buyer protection isn’t a perk. It’s the foundation. If we couldn’t deliver a clean warranty deed at the end, we shouldn’t be selling the parcel in the first place.
— Erik Peterson, Founder
The vast majority of Landopia parcels transfer on a full warranty deed. In rare edge cases we may deliver a special warranty deed (covers the seller’s period of ownership only). When that happens, your specific contract notes the deed type explicitly so there’s no surprise at the finish line. We don’t deliver quitclaim deeds on standard parcels.
Most Landopia transactions don’t include title insurance. The warranty deed and the due diligence we do up front are what stand behind your title from our side. If you want a title insurance policy on top of that, you can engage a title company at the time of title transfer to obtain one at your own cost.
Read the Buyer FAQ on title insuranceThat’s the situation the warranty deed is built for. If a title-related claim, lien, or undisclosed encumbrance comes up after we transfer the deed to you, the warranty deed makes us responsible for making it right. Call or text a Land Specialist as soon as you hear about it; we’d rather handle it directly than have you carry the problem.
The warranty deed covers title-related issues: undisclosed liens, encumbrances, claims against ownership. It does not cover surface-condition issues like access disputes, neighbor encroachments, or survey questions that surface after the sale. Those are the buyer’s responsibility to address as the owner.
See the General FAQ on title and deedIf you’ve got a question about the deed type on a specific parcel, a title issue that came up after your note paid off, or anything else on this page that needs a direct answer, a Land Specialist is the right call.
If you’ve got a specific parcel in mind, have the state, county, and parcel name (or APN) handy so we can pull the file in one pass.
The warranty deed is one piece of how we look out for our buyers. Here’s a quick look at the rest.
100 days to decide the land is right for you, or walk away with your principal back.
See how it worksChange of plans within the first year? Swap this parcel for another one in our inventory. One-for-one.
See how it worksCamp, hunt, and set up a base camp from the day you sign, not the day the note pays off. Permanent improvements wait for title.
See how it worksYou keep your end of the note for years. The deed at the end is us keeping ours.
— Erik Peterson, Founder
