Read the Original Documents

Most of what is commonly known about a property is wrong in some small way. A line in a listing saying pets are allowed may have passed through several mouths, from owner to agent to another agent, without anyone opening the conduct rules, which are what the trustees will actually enforce.

Title deeds fare worse. A deed can carry a servitude giving a neighbour a right of way across the back of the stand, or a condition limiting what may be built, and most people learn about these through a half remembered conversation. A copy of the deed can be requested from the deeds office, and the conduct rules of a scheme from the managing agent, and both can be read in an evening.

Going to the source is slow and a little tedious, and that is why so few bother. But summaries collect small errors every time they change hands, and the errors are rarely random. They drift toward whatever the person passing them on would like to be true. Somebody holding the original document is hard to talk out of what it says, which matters most at the moment a deal starts depending on it.