Mortgage and Real Estate Glossary

Real Estate Definitions and Terms: T

Offers a Mortgage and Real Estate glossary for real estate and mortgage terms and definitions for home buyers, home sellers, and real estate consumers. Find expanded definitions of important real estate and mortgage home loan terms.

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Definitions and Terms: T

Takeout Mortgage - A permanent mortgage, obtained by pre-arrangement between a builder and a financial institution, to repay the interim mortgagee at the completion of construction.

Tax Impound - Money paid to and held by a lender for annual tax payments.

Tax Lien - A claim against real estate for the amount of its unpaid taxes.

Tax Sale - Sale of property by a government body as a result of non-payment of taxes.

Term - The period of time within which a loan must be paid off.

Third-Party Origination - A process by which a lender uses another party to completely or partially originate, process, underwrite, close, fund, or package the mortgages it plans to deliver to the secondary mortgage market.

Title - A legal document showing a person's right to or ownership of a property.

Title 1 - FHA-insured loan that allows a borrower to make non-luxury improvements (like renovations or repairs) to their home; Title I loans less than $7,500 don't require a property lien.

Title Company - A company that specializes in examining and insuring titles to real estate.

Title Insurance - Title Insurance policies typically insure a homebuyer against any title-search errors or mistakes, and against loss due to disputes over property ownership. Title Insurance can additionally offer protection to the lender under similar circumstances. The cost of title insurance is usually a set value per thousand of dollars of the total loan amount.

Title Search - A check of the title records to make sure that the seller is the actual legal owner of the property, and that there are no liens or other claims outstanding.

Total Debt Ratio - Monthly debt and housing payments divided by gross monthly income. Also known as Back-End Ratio.

Transfer of Ownership - The means by which the ownership of a property changes hands. Examples of such include the purchase of a property "subject to" the mortgage, the assumption of the mortgage debt by the property purchases, and any exchange of possession of the property under a land sales contract or any other land trust device.

Transfer Tax - State or local tax payable when the title passes from one owner to another.

Trans Union - One of the three largest credit bureaus in the United States.

Truth-in-Lending Law - Provision that requires lenders to reveal the actual costs of borrowing.

Two-Step Mortgage - A loan where the interest rate is fixed for the first seven years and then is adjusted one time for the balance of the loan period.