e-Help Report: How To Prove You Own Your Own Home

What happens if you own a home, but don't have the deed or the title to prove it? Can it hurt your chances of selling your property?

If you're thinking of selling or re-financing your home, you need to prove that you own your home. That's what a deed and title are for. We spoke to Real Estate Attorney Rita Gilbert about how to get your hands on these important papers.

According to Gilbert, it's the home owner's responsibility to get the title and the deed from the previous owner, but if that doesn't happen they can do it themselves.

"Go to the County Clerk's office where the property is located," said Gilbert. "Give them the property's section block and lot number." If you're not sure of that information, Gilbert tells you how to find it.

"Your tax bill will have the section block and lot numbers on them. This way the County Clerk's office can provide a duplicate deed."

"Also," said Gilbert, "Look on the back of that deed for the title company that had the deed or who did the closing."

In New York, the purchaser is responsible for getting a title. Usually the title company goes to the county clerk's office to carry out this process, but a regular home owner can do it.

A deed is a recorded document, so there will always be a record of that in the County Clerk's office. Once you have a deed you can go ahead and re-sell or re-finance.

Every time the property is sold to a new owner, there's a change of title and every new buyer gets a new deed, so it's the last deed of record that is really important. That is the true homeowner.

The best part of this is that a copy of the deed shouldn't cost more then five dollars!