Records Research, Deeds, Plats, and Chain of Title
Records Research
Sources to assemble
Records include recorded deeds and maps, easements, CC&Rs, liens and judgments, probate and corporate documents, tax and assessment records, BLM/GLO plats and field notes, mineral surveys, county surveyor and corner records, highway and right-of-way records, historical atlases, aerial imagery, and LiDAR. Each has a different weight and purpose.
Running the chain
Use the grantor-grantee index and, where available, the tract index. Search backward to confirm the source of title and forward to expose encumbrances, easements, and later conveyances. Recording gives constructive notice; unrecorded interests may still bind through actual or inquiry notice, so the record is never the whole story.
Title reports versus surveys
A title report identifies interests and parties; it is not a boundary survey. Title insurance standard exceptions routinely exclude boundary conflicts, encroachments, and matters of survey. A recorded plat is evidence of the described layout, not proof that monuments were set or that the lines were measured.
Traps in questions
Assuming a clean index means a clean title; missing misspelled names, corporate successions, or re-recorded maps; overlooking vacated streets, reversionary interests, and reserved easements; confusing "filed" with "recorded"; relying on a tax line or fence line as a boundary.
Rule of thumb
Search backward for the chain and forward for the encumbrances. Document every source by book, page, and date, and note what you did not find, because the gaps are where disputes live.
Deeds, Plats, and Chain of Title
Deed anatomy and interpretation
A valid deed names grantor and grantee, states consideration, contains words of conveyance, gives a sufficient legal description, and is signed and delivered. Acknowledgment affects recording, not validity. Warranty, grant, and quitclaim deeds differ in the covenants conveyed; a quitclaim transfers whatever interest the grantor holds and nothing more.
Construction follows the parties' intent at the time of conveyance, read from the whole instrument. Within a description, monuments outweigh courses, courses outweigh distances, distances outweigh area, and specific calls outweigh general. Calls for adjoiners, plats, or prior deeds incorporate those documents. "More or less" yields to a precise call. Patent and latent ambiguities are handled differently, and reformation or quiet title may be required.
Traps in questions
Treating an unacknowledged deed as void; reading the legal description in isolation from the granting clause and exceptions; assuming "more or less" cures a defective description; relying on a map reference that was never recorded; assuming the strip-and-gore doctrine applies without checking the jurisdiction.
Rule of thumb
Read the entire deed before interpreting one call, and prefer the most specific evidence: a called monument in the original deed beats a computed distance every time. Grants are construed against the grantor where ambiguity survives.