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Louisiana parish title, run by tract.

For landmen, title researchers and operators working Louisiana title. Send the parish and the tract. A landman pulls the conveyance and mortgage books, the successions and suits, and the state's unit orders and well files, and sends back a runsheet: each act we find on the tract, in order, with the book and page and the record it came from.

We're also building a parish index kept by tract, an abstract plant. No parish is online in it yet. To see where each parish keeps its records today, landman.wiki has a page for all 64.

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Illustrated parish map A drawing of an imaginary Louisiana parish. Section lines cover the upland; along the river, long lots run back from both banks. A compulsory unit with a well sits in one section, and a subject tract lies partly inside it. The parish seat sits on the river. 123456 N 1 mile
  1. Long lots, run back from the river on the old colonial claims
  2. Sections, township and range on the upland
  3. A compulsory unit and its well
  4. The subject tract, partly inside the unit
  5. The parish seat, where the clerk keeps the books
  6. The parish line

Illustration, not a real parish. One tract can sit under both survey systems, a unit order and a century of acts in several books.

The books a parish search runs through

Louisiana doesn't keep one deed record. The parish clerk of court keeps conveyances and mortgages in separate books, with the succession and suit records in the same office. Unit orders and well files come from the state.

A search that skips one of them misses something. The plant will tie all of them to the tract. Today, a landman pulls them by hand.

Two guides go into the detail: how to read the clerk's stamp and the books, and how to find the well, the unit order and the plat at the state.

  • COBClerk

    Conveyance records

    Sales, donations, exchanges, mineral deeds, leases, rights of way, and judgments of possession once recorded. The chain of ownership lives here.

  • MOBClerk

    Mortgage records

    Mortgages, collateral mortgages, liens and privileges, the cancellations that clear them, and recorded notices of pendency of action (lis pendens). The clerk's mortgage certificate is run from these books.

  • SUCCClerk

    Successions

    The court record of a death: the petition, the descriptive list and the judgment that puts the heirs in possession. Surviving-spouse usufructs often start here.

  • SUITClerk

    Civil suits

    Partitions, boundary and quiet-title actions, and other suits that touch the land.

  • ORDState

    Conservation orders

    Unit orders and unit survey plats from the Department of Conservation and Energy. They say which tracts share a unit well, and which part of a tract is out.

  • WELLState

    Well files

    Permits, spud and plug dates, depths and production from SONRIS. The evidence for or against prescription.

One page per tract

In the plant, each tract gets a page: every act that touches it, in order, with the book and page and the record it came from. Here is the shape of one, drawn from the kinds of acts a North Louisiana chain carries.

Notice what only shows up when the books are read together: the dry hole in the well file is what decides whether the 1938 reservation is still alive.

Sec. 18, 120 acres, more or less

Illustration, not a real tract

  1. 1938

    Cash sale. The vendor reserves all minerals.

    COB 211/404

    Servitude created. Ten years start running.

  2. 1947

    Well drilled on the tract, plugged and abandoned dry.

    WELL well file

    Good-faith operations. The ten years start over from the last day of drilling.

  3. 1957

    No operations or production in the well files for ten years.

    WELL no record

    Servitude prescribed. The minerals went back to the landowner.

  4. 1983

    Judgment of possession in the landowner's succession.

    SUCC COB 688/120

    If it was community property, the children take the naked ownership of his share and their mother the usufruct.

  5. 2008

    Compulsory unit order takes in the north 80 acres.

    ORD unit order and plat

    The south 40 acres sit outside the unit.

  6. 2009

    Oil, gas and mineral lease from the heirs and their mother.

    COB 1422/310

    Usufructuary and naked owners join in the lease.

  7. 2010

    Collateral mortgage on the land.

    MOB 890/55

    Shows on the mortgage certificate until it's cancelled.

Get word when your parish goes online

Leave your email and the parishes you work, and they go on the list for when one of them goes live.

Where does the ten-year clock stand?

Ten years of nonuse ends a Louisiana mineral servitude, and a mineral royalty prescribes the same way. Put in the dates from the chain and see where the clock stands. It's a first read for scoping a search, not a title opinion.

Sample dates are filled in. Replace them with the ones from your chain.

Needed when the last date falls more than ten years after creation, to tell whether the work began in time.

Leave it blank if production is still going on.

Where the clock stands

Ten years counted from
Ten years end on
Time left
Mineral Code

This reads the dates you enter and nothing else. A real chain can carry several interruptions, a unit that covers only part of the tract, an acknowledgment that doesn't meet the Code's form, or a period suspended by an obstacle (La. R.S. 31:59, 31:60). The records decide. Have us pull them for this tract.

Civil-law terms you'll meet in the chain

Louisiana title reads differently from its neighbors. These are the words that trip up a landman coming over from Texas or Mississippi.

Mineral servitude
La. R.S. 31:21
The right to use another's land to explore for and produce minerals. A reservation that would create a separate mineral estate in Texas creates a servitude here.
Prescription of nonuse
La. R.S. 31:27
Ten years without use extinguishes a mineral servitude, and the minerals go back to the landowner.
Interruption
La. R.S. 31:29, 31:30, 31:36
Good-faith operations or production restart the ten years, counted from the last day of operations or the day production stops.
Mineral royalty
La. R.S. 31:80, 31:85, 31:87, 31:90, 31:93
A share of production free of the costs of production, with no right to drill. It also prescribes after ten years of nonuse. Production interrupts it and drilling alone does not; a tested shut-in well or a written acknowledgment can too.
Executive right
La. R.S. 31:105, 31:106
The exclusive right to grant mineral leases. It can be split off from the servitude or royalty it rides with.
Usufruct and naked ownership
La. C.C. arts. 478, 535
A usufruct is a real right of limited duration on another's property. The owner holds the naked ownership until it ends. A surviving spouse's usufruct often appears in a Louisiana chain.
Judgment of possession
Succession record
The court's judgment putting heirs or legatees in possession of the decedent's property. It is usually recorded in the conveyance records of the parish where the land lies.
Public records doctrine
La. C.C. art. 3338
An act affecting immovables that isn't recorded in the parish where the land lies has no effect against third persons. What's on the books is what counts.
COB and MOB
Parish clerk
The conveyance and mortgage books kept by the parish clerk of court. Newer acts also carry a file or entry number. How to read the stamp.
Mortgage certificate
Parish clerk
The clerk's certificate of the mortgages, liens and privileges recorded against a named person. How long the effect of recording a mortgage lasts.
Compulsory unit
La. R.S. 30:9, 30:10
A drilling unit set by order of the Department of Conservation and Energy. Operations for the unitized sand can interrupt prescription on the part of a servitude inside the unit, unless the parties agreed in writing that they reach the whole tract (La. R.S. 31:33, 31:37, 31:75).
SONRIS
State database
The state's online database of well permits, well files and production, run by the Department of Conservation and Energy. How to find a well, unit and operator.
Acquisitive prescription
La. C.C. arts. 3473, 3486
Ownership gained by possession: ten years in good faith and under just title, thirty years without either.
Water bottoms
La. C.C. art. 450; La. R.S. 9:1101, 30:124
Under natural navigable waters the bed is usually a public thing owned by the state, and the State Mineral and Energy Board leases it. Beds under private ownership on August 12, 1910 stay private.

Two guides to the records

Explainers written from the Civil Code, the Revised Statutes, the state's own guides and parish clerk pages. Each one lists its sources and the date they were opened.

  • Parish clerk

    Reading Louisiana conveyance and mortgage records

    What the clerk's stamp says, which book an act goes in, how the Civil Code orders acts filed in the same minute, and how long the effect of recording a mortgage lasts.

    Read the guide
  • State records

    Find a Louisiana well, unit and operator on SONRIS

    The click path from a section, township and range to a well, its operator, the unit order and the survey plat, and what each record does and does not show.

    Read the guide

Questions

Is anything searchable here yet?

No. No parish is online yet, and we won't list one until its index is loaded and checked against the clerk's books. Until then a search request means a landman pulls the records for your tract and builds the runsheet. The coverage list is how you'll hear when a parish goes live.

Can a servitude be created for longer than ten years of nonuse?

No. The period of nonuse can be shortened by contract, not lengthened at creation (La. R.S. 31:74, 31:75). What keeps a servitude alive is use, or a written acknowledgment from the landowner (La. R.S. 31:54). One exception worth knowing: minerals reserved in a sale or expropriation to a government or other acquiring authority can be treated differently from an ordinary reservation, so read the sale or expropriation documents themselves (La. R.S. 31:149).

Does drilling on a unit interrupt prescription on the whole servitude?

Only on the part of the tract inside the unit, unless the unit well is on the burdened tract itself or the servitude or a later writing says unit operations reach the whole tract (La. R.S. 31:33, 31:37, 31:75). The operations also have to be for the unitized sand. A servitude over a section that is half in a Haynesville unit can be alive on one half and prescribed on the other. That is why the tract page carries the unit order.

What does it take to show a dry hole interrupted prescription?

La. R.S. 31:29 asks for operations commenced with a reasonable expectation of paying production at a particular point or depth, continued at that site to that point or depth, and conducted as a single operation even if drilling is not going on every day. On a title, the evidence is usually the SONRIS well file: permit, spud and plug dates, and total depth. Where the file is thin, an affidavit from someone with knowledge may fill it in. Your examiner decides. The SONRIS guide shows where to pull the file.

How does a prescribed servitude come off the record?

Prescription accrues on its own, but the books don't clean themselves. On written demand, the former owner of an extinguished mineral right owes a recordable act evidencing the extinction within 30 days (La. R.S. 31:206). A good-faith dispute over prescription can excuse liability for damages and attorney fees (La. R.S. 31:208). Where the owners are scattered or can't be found, some examiners accept an affidavit of nonuse built on the well data, and the examiner decides whether it is enough.

Are you attorneys?

No. We're independent landmen. We pull and abstract the records and build the runsheet. We do not give title opinions.

Request a parish search

Tell us the parish and the tract, and what you need done with it. One of our landmen reads the request and replies by email with what that parish's records support, how far back we'd run it and the terms for the work. Nothing starts until you say so.

  • The tract. Section, township and range; a long lot; a subdivision lot; or the book and page of the last deed you have.
  • How far back. Current owner and liens, a set date, or all the way to the patent.
  • What it's for. A lease, a unit, a sale, a curative question or a prescription work-up.

We work as independent landmen. We are not attorneys and do not give title opinions.

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