Title searches, servicer reports, and Borrower self-reporting each do one job. None of them watch the portfolio.
Ask most lenders or funds how they track portfolio risk after close, and you'll hear some mix of three tools. Each one is useful. Each one leaves a gap.
Title searches: accurate, but frozen
A title search is the gold standard for a moment in time. The problem is the moment. It says nothing about what gets filed next week, and rerunning it across a whole portfolio is slow and expensive.
Servicer reports: timely, but narrow
Servicers track payments, escrow, and loan status well. They aren't built to watch county recorders and courts for new liens, lawsuits, or transfers. By the time a problem shows up in performance data, it has usually been on file for a while.
Self-reporting: convenient, but conflicted
Covenants require disclosure. But you're asking the party being monitored to monitor themselves. The events that matter most are the ones least likely to be reported on time.
What replaces them
Continuous monitoring doesn't throw these tools away. It fills the space between them. Alefy watches the public record for every property, Sponsor, and entity in your portfolio, all the time, so you stop relying on snapshots, partial feeds, and the goodwill of the Borrower.