The common goal of all due diligence efforts is to find out precisely what the seller is selling and what the buyer is buying. (Or, what the landlord is offering to rent, and the tenant is going to get if it leases the property.)

This sounds simple, but is not so easy: the challenge is to find out about the property while relying only on sources of information that are known to be highly accurate (and, if possible, on sources that carry liability insurance against their own errors). One of the most important tools available to a buyer or tenant is a title report.

A title report will disclose who owns the land, and precisely what legal interest the owner/landlord has in the land, together with a list of other interests in the land owned by other people.