GUIDELINES FOR LANDMEN IN CONDUCTING RECORDS SEARCHES AND PREPARING REPORTS FOR ATTORNEYS (or WHAT DOES THE CLIENT WANT?)

• Jurisdiction: United States

Land and Permitting
(Jan 1994)
CHAPTER 10B
GUIDELINES FOR LANDMEN IN CONDUCTING RECORDS SEARCHES AND PREPARING REPORTS FOR ATTORNEYS (or WHAT DOES THE CLIENT WANT?)
Nicola L. Maddox
Texas Meridian Resources Corporation
Houston, Texas

There are various source materials used by attorneys to determine title depending on the client's use of the opinion, the degree of risk the client is willing to assume and the amount of money the client is willing to spend to ascertain title. Whichever combination is chosen by the client, it is essential that the landman working with the attorney, prepare all documentation being presented to the examiner with the utmost care and attention to detail. There will be important decisions made based on the conclusions drawn by the title examiner; therefore every phase of the process must be at the highest accuracy level possible.

TYPES OF TITLE EXAMINATIONS

Independent Landman Takeoff

Oftentimes the first title review conducted by a company is actually performed by a knowledgeable independent landman who has skills in determining surface and mineral ownership by a review of the various sources including federal, state, county or parish records. Generally the landman will review title from sovereignty to date over a fairly large geographic area and will summarize his findings on maps coded to a written report setting forth the current surface and mineral ownership, identification of any current leasehold with pertinent terms, mining claims, and other details which provide the client with the basic information needed to acquire or confirm title. This documentation can aid a title examiner performing a formal review as it provides additional information and back-up as a reference.

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True Stand-Up

A "Stand-Up" title review is the term used to describe an examination of title personally conducted in the local courthouse by an attorney with the expectation that the attorney will render a formal opinion based on his review of the actual documents found of record. The attorney will conduct the record check by pulling the various documents identified in the chain of title from sovereignty through the current date, reviewing them in detail, drawing his conclusions, copying the critical documents, and finalizing his interpretation. Depending on how complicated the title is, this can at times be the fastest way to secure an opinion, but it is usually costly since you are paying the attorney's hourly rate for his own identification and legwork. Further, you will not have a permanent reference source although you may have spent as much money as if you had originally secured an abstract.

Stand-Up from Run Sheets

One way to speed up the process of an attorney conducting a stand-up opinion is to have an independent landman who specializes in title work review the records in detail and provide a list of documents affecting the title in recordation order. Such list is often referred to as a "Run Sheet" and will contain the following information for each document:

1) Grantor

2) Grantee

3) Date of Document

4) Effective Date of Document

5) Date of Recordation

6) Recording Data

7) Type of Document

8) Description (when appropriate)

9) Comments

The examining attorney then takes this list to the courthouse and pulls the documents, reviewing them as he goes, and determines title through his analysis. This shortens the time the attorney is working in the courthouse so is usually more cost efficient than the true stand-up. However, it may still not be the most cost effective approach and you still do not have a permanent reference document.

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Limited Abstract of Title

If there are...