05/21/2026
Working with a title company who takes transfer of land ownership seriously is a key component to ensuring my clients can peace of mind through the very end of the transaction. Can't say enough great things about Illini Title. It's where I choose to close every deal for my clients.
Illini Title shares a stat here that doesn't surprise me one bit because I work with farmers every day, and I know how long they can wait for neighboring ground to come up for sale.
When a family decides it's finally time to sell their land and it's in your backyard, you do whatever it takes to make sure you're the one who buys it cause as the research shows, on average, it will be another 64 years before a piece of land will be available again.
The last piece of ground I sold in Central Illinois was under contract within 24 hours. Before it hit the website. Before it made it to social media. Probably sound like a broken record but another reminder that if there is ground you want.... and you don't want to wait another 64 years to buy it.... you need to call me so I can notify you as soon as ground is listed in your area.
📧 [email protected]
📞 217-841-8824
Dusty Frandle, The Agrifield Group, eXp Realty
Here is a number that stopped us in our tracks when we saw it in a 2026 Farmland Values Report. 👇
The average Illinois farmland parcel changes hands once every 64 years.
Not once a decade.
Not once a generation.
Once every 64 years.
Less than 2 acres out of every 100 sell in any given year across the entire state.
That means when a farm finally does transfer, whether it is a sale, an estate, or a family succession, it is not just a transaction.
It is a once-in-a-generation event.
And the title work that has to happen before that transfer can close cleanly? It has to go back just as far.
This is exactly why Illini Title has a dedicated 100-year farmground searcher.
Not someone who does residential searches and occasionally handles a farm. Not a general title examiner who pulls a few records.
Our searcher specializes in farm ground. She goes back 100 years through courthouse records, deed chains, and legal descriptions to make sure every generation of ownership is accounted if at all possible before a single signature happens at the closing table.
We've heard horror stories of some closings happening without this thoroughness. And most farm families do not realize the issues this can create until it is too late.
Here is what "too late" can look like:
🔴 Drainage tile that was never formally recorded. A neighboring farmer ran tile across your grandfather's field in 1967 with a handshake agreement. Nothing was filed. Nothing was recorded. Now you are selling the farm, and the buyer's lender finds it … or worse, they do not find it and your grandchildren are in a legal dispute with a neighbor over who owns the drainage rights. A 100-year search catches this. A standard search often does not.
🔴 An easement that was granted and forgotten. A utility company was given a right-of-way in 1952. The original owner is long gone. The easement was never flagged in a recent search because nobody looked back far enough. Now the buyer builds a grain bin in the wrong place and discovers the problem after the fact. A thorough search finds it before it becomes your family's problem to solve.
🔴 An heir who was never properly included in the deed. A farm passes from grandparents to parents, but one sibling was inadvertently left off the paperwork decades ago. Nobody noticed at the time because the family farmed it together. When it finally sells, that heir, or their children, has a legitimate claim to the title. The transaction stalls, attorneys get involved, and a family that thought they were selling a farm finds themselves in a dispute over who actually owns it.
🔴 A legal description that does not match what is actually being farmed. Boundaries shift. Surveys from the 1940s used different monuments. What is on paper and what is on the ground are not always the same thing. When that discrepancy surfaces at closing, or years later when a neighbor challenges a fence line, it is expensive, stressful, and entirely avoidable with the right title work upfront.
These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are the kinds of issues that surface when farmland changes hands after decades of sitting quietly with the same family… and when the title work done at closing did not go back far enough to find them.
The farm your family has worked for generations deserves more than a standard search. It deserves someone who knows how to read a 1938 deed, trace a drainage agreement through county records, and flag an unrecorded easement before it becomes your grandchildren's legal problem.
That is what our searcher does. Every file. Every time.
If you have ground that has been in your family for decades and you are thinking about what comes next, we would be glad to talk through what a thorough title search looks like and why it matters more than most people realize.
📍 Champaign: 217-478-5588
📍 Edwardsville: 618-685-0949
🌐 illinititle.com
