By Eleanor Snite, contributing writer

“Our goal is to help our telecom and tower clients reduce or eliminate the risks of entering into a lease agreement with a property owner,” said Jim Kudless, vice president of development and process excellence for U.S. Title Solutions LLC. “We want them to feel confident going forward with a lease or even purchasing the property.”

Kudless compares a title search for a residence, which is fairly easy to find, to a commercial title search for a property that has or will have a telecom tower on it. The residence only needs the name of the previous owner, but that isn’t true for tower properties.
“If a client wants to lease a property, they need to go back much, much further,” he said. “They have to understand all of the potential issues or restrictions that could prevent them for doing what they want to do on the property.”

U.S. Title has searchers across the nation who go to the offices of the more than 3,300 counties in the United States to find the necessary documents. Some potential clients want to know why they can’t just go on the Internet, but Kudless said only 15 percent of the counties have that information online.

Once the searchers find all the documents needed, the information goes to U.S. Title’s headquarters in Lebanon, N.J., for a thorough examination and report production.
In addition to providing real estate information services, U.S. Title also provides title insurance for local and national telecom and tower companies.