Asset class

Foreign property in United States

Real estate in the United States is recorded at the county level, not nationally. There is no single federal land registry to check. Title passes by deed, and closing runs through a title company or escrow agent under state law. What secures the investor's position is the recorded deed and the title insurance policy, not a certificate issued by a fund manager or a foreign counterparty.

Register and custody layer

Ownership of US real property is evidenced by a deed recorded with the county recorder or equivalent office in the county where the property sits. There is no centralized federal register that substitutes for this. Where the investor holds an interest through a US LLC, trust, or limited partnership rather than directly, a second layer applies: the entity's formation and filings with the relevant secretary of state. A dispute about who holds title, or whether an interest was ever properly conveyed, is resolved by checking these two records against the closing file, not by relying on marketing materials or a subscription agreement alone. For background on how enforcement runs once a US-facing claim is filed, see the jurisdiction page for the United States.

The document rarely handed over

Investors who buy into US property through a fund, developer, or intermediary structure often receive a subscription agreement, a private placement memorandum, or a distribution schedule. They rarely receive the recorded deed itself, the title insurance policy, or the closing statement. This matters because those three documents are what establish, on the record, that a specific parcel was conveyed to a specific owner for a specific price. Without them, an investor's claim to an underlying property interest is indirect: it runs through the promises of the intermediary structure rather than through recorded title. When performance stops, that gap is often the first thing a review has to close.

What belongs in a pre-deal report

A factual 6D report on a US property opportunity checks what can be verified before money moves, and later, what can be reconstructed if it did not. That includes a copy of the recorded deed or a certified statement that none exists yet, the title insurance policy or commitment, the escrow or closing statement, and the entity filings for any LLC, trust, or partnership standing between the investor and the property. Where foreign-issued documents are part of the file, their legalization status matters: for the United States, apostille certification under the Hague Convention applies, subject to the reservation the US has declared. [N413]

A paid initial assessment does not estimate the outcome of a claim. It establishes which of these documents exist, which are missing, and what that gap means for the file before any letter is sent or any position is disclosed. The structured review of a stalled property claim starts from that same document set, and the pre-deal checklist for foreign property opportunities sets out the items to request before, not after, the fact.