Frequently Asked Questions

It can be viewed as a concise legal history of real estate, detailing who has owned portions of property and how those properties have changed hands over the years.

An abstract of title is “continued” in order to show all the encumbrances affecting the property, which involves searching all of the land records filed in the Dubuque County Recorder’s office as well as court proceedings in the Clerk of Court’s office. We also search the owner of the real estate (both their current and any previous legal names) in both offices to find all unsatisfied judgements and liens. The reason for this is to discover any issues that could affect your purchase of the property.

The continuation is done within 30 days of the closing and the certificate is good for 30 days, which is an underwriting requirement by the lending institution(s).

A key differentiator between Abeln and other title researches is we keep and maintain all the records from the Dubuque County Recorder’s Office and the Clerk of Court’s office in-house and do not rely on their indexes and databases. This ensures a level of quality and accuracy other organizations simply cannot provide.

When application to acquire title to public lands and the applicant is permitted to proceed with earning title to the land under the governing laws and regulations.

Most people may think of a “unique invention” when hearing the word “patent,” but it has a different meaning in this scenario. For our purposes, a “patent” can be considered a deed from the Federal or State government. It’s a document by which the United States or State Government conveys, to those entitled thereto, legal title to some portion of public lands.

The root of title is the most recent recorded or established conveyance or other title transaction (at least 40 years old) that created the interest in the person claiming marketable record title. The root of title must purport to create the title interest either in the person now claiming the interest, or some other person from whom, by one or more title transactions of record, such purported interest has become vested in the person claiming the interest. Common examples: Contract, Warranty Deed, Probated Will, Quit Claim Deed, Court Decree or Court Officers Deed.

A mortgage can serve as the root of title if it has been foreclosed.

Abeln will store your abstract for no fee. If we misplace an abstract, we will create a new one at no charge.

Orders are completed the same day or next day when the certification date is within 30 days of the closing date.

Not at this time.

Just call or email Abeln and we will check to see if we did any work on the real estate in question. If we did work on it, we can provide when the work was completed and to whom the abstract was sent, and contact that entity on your behalf.

Our tract books start with the original entry. That is the first entry of record that was filed when the Federal government began selling parcels of land to the early settlers of Dubuque County, IA.