The national services run a search anywhere in the country, and ProTitleUSA — probably the best-known — does careful work. That reach is genuinely useful across state lines. The trade-off shows up on one Miami-Dade parcel: a national search is built for breadth, so it leans on the standard recorded-document search and sells the local, Dade-specific risk as add-ons — or leaves it out. We went the other way: one county, everything in. Here’s the honest side-by-side.
What a national search leaves out
A standard national title or owner search is built around the recorded instruments — deeds, mortgages, judgments, recorded liens. Real work, done well. But on a Dade parcel, a lot of what actually costs you lives outside that search: open code-enforcement cases with live, accruing balances (before they ever become liens), Miami-Dade DERM environmental cases, county sewer-connection mandates, and county and City of Miami building permits. And the part that matters most at auction — whether each lien survives a foreclosure or tax deed — a flat recorded-docs list won’t tell you. We do.
Built for the deal clock
ProTitleUSA quotes roughly 24 to 48 business hours for a standard search, and even the rush fee only gets you to about four business hours — a Friday order can land mid-next-week. Ours is automated end to end: enter a folio, and the report is back in minutes, Sunday at 11pm the same as Tuesday at 9am. When you’re running an auction list the night before, “business hours” isn’t a turnaround you can use.
The math at volume
A finished Dade search from a national service routinely lands between $150 and $275 once you add the municipal-lien search, the prior-owner product, and the rush fee — each its own line item. That’s fine for the one deal you close. It’s impossible across the ten you’re screening. At $59 flat, with everything already in it, you run the read on every lead and spend the certified search only on the survivors.
What we’re not
To be clear about the boundary: we’re not a certified, insured title product, and we’re not trying to be. We don’t write title insurance, and to close you’ll still want a title commitment. That’s a different job for a different moment. But for the due-diligence question — “before I commit capital, what is actually attached to this parcel?” — that’s exactly what this is built to answer, fast, for $59.
So which do you use?
Both — just not at the same moment. Use us first, on every Miami-Dade parcel, as the triage step before you spend real money or sign anything. Bring in a national service (or a local title company) when you’re working across states, or when you’ve cleared the first look and need the certified, insurable product to close. We’re the one that comes first — and the one that costs $59.
Keep reading
- Foreclosure & auction buyersWhich liens survive the sale — settled before you bid, not after.
- Wholesalers & lien buyersTriage at volume, and the hidden distress that moves a price.
- Realtors & listing agentsKill the closing-table surprise before the buyer's agent finds it.
- Everything we pullThe full record on a folio, line by line.
- Why pull one before you bidThe moments it changes the number.