# parish.land - Parish Land | Louisiana parish title searches by tract

> Send the parish and the tract. A landman runs the Louisiana conveyance, mortgage, succession and unit records and sends back a runsheet.

## Overview & Scope
- **Canonical Domain**: https://parish.land/
- **Contact Email**: hello@parish.land
- **Phone**: (307) 263-8515
- **Privacy Policy**: https://parish.land/privacy.html
- **Terms of Use**: https://parish.land/terms.html
- **Access Policy**: Public browser calculators, checklists, and reference guides on this domain are free and ungated. Tract-specific courthouse deed, probate, unit, or division-order record verification is requested through the site inquiry form.

## AI & Structured Data Endpoints
- **Extended Markdown Corpus**: https://parish.land/llms-full.txt
- **AI API Index**: https://parish.land/api/ai/index.json
- **Site & Page Metadata**: https://parish.land/api/ai/site-info.json
- **Canonical FAQ Corpus (6 Q&As)**: https://parish.land/api/ai/faq.json
- **XML Sitemap**: https://parish.land/sitemap.xml

## Pages, Calculators & Guides
- [10-Year Prescription on Louisiana Minerals | Parish Land](https://parish.land/10-year-prescription-of-nonuse-louisiana-minerals): How the 10-year prescription of nonuse extinguishes Louisiana mineral servitudes and royalties under the Mineral Code (La. R.S. 31:27-31:92) and interrupts it.
- [Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Red River & Sabine Title | Parish Land](https://parish.land/caddo-bossier-desoto-red-river-sabine-parish-title): Northwest Louisiana parish mineral and land title research across Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Red River, and Sabine Parishes: clerk books, river lots, and units.
- [Compulsory Unitization & Unleased Owners in LA | Parish Land](https://parish.land/compulsory-unitization-and-unleased-owners-louisiana): How compulsory drilling units work in Louisiana under La. R.S. 30:9 and 30:10, risk charges, well-cost reporting under R.S. 30:103.1, and Self v. BPX.
- [Parish Land | Louisiana parish title searches by tract](https://parish.land/): Send the parish and the tract. A landman runs the Louisiana conveyance, mortgage, succession and unit records and sends back a runsheet.
- [Judgment of Possession for Louisiana Mineral Rights | Parish Land](https://parish.land/judgment-of-possession-louisiana-mineral-rights): How a Louisiana Succession and Judgment of Possession transfer mineral servitudes and royalties, spouse usufruct under Articles 190-191, and parish recording.
- [Find a Louisiana Well, Unit and Operator on SONRIS | Parish Land](https://parish.land/louisiana-well-unit-operator-sonris-lookup): From a section, township and range to a well, its operator, the unit order and the survey plat in SONRIS, and what each record does and does not show.
- [Reading Louisiana Conveyance and Mortgage Records | Parish Land](https://parish.land/reading-louisiana-conveyance-and-mortgage-records): How to read the clerk's stamp on a Louisiana act, which book it goes in, how the Civil Code orders same-day filings, and when a recorded mortgage reinscribes.

## Key Questions Answered on This Domain
- **Is anything searchable here yet?** (https://parish.land/)
- **Can a servitude be created for longer than ten years of nonuse?** (https://parish.land/)
- **Does drilling on a unit interrupt prescription on the whole servitude?** (https://parish.land/)
- **What does it take to show a dry hole interrupted prescription?** (https://parish.land/)
- **How does a prescribed servitude come off the record?** (https://parish.land/)
- **Are you attorneys?** (https://parish.land/)

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## Full Page Summaries & Sections

### 10-Year Prescription on Louisiana Minerals | Parish Land
- **URL**: https://parish.land/10-year-prescription-of-nonuse-louisiana-minerals
- **Headline**: 10-year prescription of nonuse on Louisiana mineral servitudes and royalties
- **Summary**: How the 10-year prescription of nonuse extinguishes Louisiana mineral servitudes and royalties under the Mineral Code (La. R.S. 31:27-31:92) and interrupts it.
- **Sections**: In one paragraph; On this page; 1. Mineral servitude vs. mineral royalty interruption; 2. What counts as a good-faith dry hole (La. R.S. 31:29); 3. How a compulsory unit splits prescription across a tract; 4. Written acknowledgment and the public-land exception; Request a parish search; Guides
  - Unlike Texas and other common-law states, a private landowner in Louisiana cannot create a perpetual severed mineral estate. Every mineral sale or reservation creates a mineral servitude or a mineral royalty subject to ten-year liberative prescription of nonuse under the Louisiana Mineral Code (Title 31 of the Revised Statutes).
  - Last checked October 13, 2026. This is general information from the Louisiana Mineral Code, not legal advice and not an attorney's opinion on title.
  - Under La. R.S. 31:27, a mineral servitude is extinguished by prescription resulting from nonuse for ten years, counted from the date the servitude is created (La. R.S. 31:28), and the mineral rights revert automatically to the owner of the surface land at the moment prescription accrues. For a mineral servitude, prescription is interrupted either by good-faith drilling or testing operations commenced and continued to a target depth with a reasonable expectation of paying production, even if the well is a dry hole (La. R.S. 31:29), or by actual production (La. R.S. 31:36). For a mineral royalty (La. R.S. 31:85), dry-hole drilling alone does not interrupt prescription: interruption requires actual production (La. R.S. 31:87) or a tested shut-in well capable of producing in paying quantities (La. R.S. 31:90).

### Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Red River & Sabine Title | Parish Land
- **URL**: https://parish.land/caddo-bossier-desoto-red-river-sabine-parish-title
- **Headline**: Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Red River, and Sabine Parish title searches: Northwest Louisiana basin guide
- **Summary**: Northwest Louisiana parish mineral and land title research across Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Red River, and Sabine Parishes: clerk books, river lots, and units.
- **Sections**: In one paragraph; On this page; 1. The five core Northwest Louisiana parishes; 2. Stacked pay zones and depth-severance chains; 3. Red River and Toledo Bend water-bottom & riparian issues; 4. What a parish tract runsheet delivers; Request a parish search; Guides
  - Five Northwest Louisiana parishes sit at the core of the Haynesville and Bossier Shale and the older Cotton Valley, Hosston, and Smackover fields. Here is how courthouse books, Township/Range surveys, and state conservation files fit together across those five parish seats.
  - Last checked October 13, 2026. This is general information from parish clerk and state conservation records, not legal advice and not an attorney's opinion on title.
  - In Northwest Louisiana, land descriptions run on the Louisiana Meridian (Northwestern Land District) in rectangular Sections, Townships North (`T9N` to `T23N`), and Ranges West (`R9W` to `R16W`), interrupted along the Red River and Sabine River by irregular fractional sections, Spanish/French private land claims, and accretions/batture. Running mineral title in Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto, Red River, or Sabine Parish requires pulling four separate parish clerk indices (Conveyance `COB`, Mortgage `MOB`, Successions `SUCC`, and Civil Suits `SUIT`) at the parish seat and cross-checking every mineral reservation against historical shallow and deep well files on SONRIS to test the 10-year liberative prescription of nonuse.

### Compulsory Unitization & Unleased Owners in LA | Parish Land
- **URL**: https://parish.land/compulsory-unitization-and-unleased-owners-louisiana
- **Headline**: Compulsory unitization and unleased mineral owners in Louisiana (La. R.S. 30:9, 30:10, and 30:103.1)
- **Summary**: How compulsory drilling units work in Louisiana under La. R.S. 30:9 and 30:10, risk charges, well-cost reporting under R.S. 30:103.1, and Self v. BPX.
- **Sections**: In one paragraph; On this page; 1. Why the unit survey plat controls the tract factor; 2. Leased vs. unleased mineral owners in a compulsory unit; 3. Well-cost reporting demands under La. R.S. 30:103.1 & 30:103.2; 4. Post-production costs and Self v. BPX Operating Co. (2024); Request a parish search; Guides
  - Louisiana conservation & title guide
  - In Louisiana, most drilling units are established by order of the Commissioner of Conservation rather than solely by voluntary pooling clauses. Every tract inside the Commissioner's unit survey plat shares proportionately by surface acreage, including tracts whose mineral owners never signed a lease.
  - Last checked October 13, 2026. This is general information from the Louisiana Revised Statutes and judicial opinions, not legal advice and not an attorney's opinion on title.

### Parish Land | Louisiana parish title searches by tract
- **URL**: https://parish.land/
- **Headline**: Louisiana parish title, run by tract.
- **Summary**: Send the parish and the tract. A landman runs the Louisiana conveyance, mortgage, succession and unit records and sends back a runsheet.
- **Sections**: The books a parish search runs through; One page per tract; Get word when your parish goes online; Where does the ten-year clock stand?; Civil-law terms you'll meet in the chain; Six guides to the records; Questions; Request a parish search
  - 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.
  - Illustration, not a real parish. One tract can sit under both survey systems, a unit order and a century of acts in several books.

### Judgment of Possession for Louisiana Mineral Rights | Parish Land
- **URL**: https://parish.land/judgment-of-possession-louisiana-mineral-rights
- **Headline**: Judgment of Possession for Louisiana mineral rights: successions, usufruct, and parish recording
- **Summary**: How a Louisiana Succession and Judgment of Possession transfer mineral servitudes and royalties, spouse usufruct under Articles 190-191, and parish recording.
- **Sections**: In one paragraph; On this page; 1. What goes into a Louisiana succession record; 2. Surviving-spouse usufruct, naked ownership, and the open-mine rule; 3. Out-of-state decedents and ancillary Louisiana successions; 4. When a Louisiana Small Succession Affidavit is available; Request a parish search; Guides
  - When a mineral or royalty owner dies owning property in a Louisiana parish, an out-of-state probate order or an informal family affidavit rarely satisfies an operator's division order analyst. In Louisiana civil law, succession title culminates in a Judgment of Possession recorded in the parish conveyance records.
  - Last checked October 13, 2026. This is general information from the Louisiana Civil Code, Code of Civil Procedure, and Mineral Code, not legal advice and not an attorney's opinion on title.
  - In Louisiana, mineral servitudes, mineral royalties, and mineral leases are incorporeal immovables (La. R.S. 31:18) governed by Louisiana situs law even when the decedent lived in Texas or another state. A judicial succession proceeding in the district court concludes with a Judgment of Possession (La. C.C.P. art. 3061) that recognizes the heirs or legatees, sets out their fractional shares, and recognizes any surviving-spouse usufruct alongside the children's naked ownership. Under the Louisiana public records doctrine (La. C.C. art. 3338 and art. 3346), a certified copy of the Judgment of Possession must be recorded in the Conveyance Books (`COB`) of every parish where the land or mineral rights lie.

### Find a Louisiana Well, Unit and Operator on SONRIS | Parish Land
- **URL**: https://parish.land/louisiana-well-unit-operator-sonris-lookup
- **Headline**: Find a Louisiana well, unit and operator on SONRIS
- **Summary**: From a section, township and range to a well, its operator, the unit order and the survey plat in SONRIS, and what each record does and does not show.
- **Sections**: In one paragraph; On this page; Where SONRIS lives; 1Step 1, find the wells on the tract; 2Step 2, read the serial number; 3Step 3, find the operator; 4Step 4, find the unit order; 5Step 5, find the unit survey plat
  - SONRIS is the state's online system for oil, gas and injection well information, field orders and other Department records. This page walks from a section, township and range to a well, its operator, the order that created its unit and the unit's survey plat, and says what each record can and cannot tell you about a tract.
  - Guides, statutes and rules last read September 29, 2026. This is general information taken from the state's own guides, statutes and rules and one parish clerk's page, all listed at the bottom. It is not legal advice and not a title opinion. We are landmen, not attorneys. The Department's guides page says its older resources may not reflect the current format of SONRIS after the October 2025 change to the interface, so the menu names below come from the guides it lists now and may read a little differently on your screen. The glossary cited below is an older file issued under the Department's former name, and its wording may not match current screens.
  - In SONRIS, Well Information Search takes a section, township and range and returns the wells there, each with a well serial number. The serial number opens the well's profile, which links to the imaged well file. The profile carries the operator's ID, and a search by operator name lists the wells that operator holds. The Blackbooks-Field Order Index leads to the field order that set up a unit, and Document Access holds the imaged unit survey plat, which under the state's rule carries each tract and its percentage participation in the unit. Each of those is the state's record of a well, an order or a plat. None of them is a title opinion.

### Reading Louisiana Conveyance and Mortgage Records | Parish Land
- **URL**: https://parish.land/reading-louisiana-conveyance-and-mortgage-records
- **Headline**: Reading Louisiana conveyance and mortgage records
- **Summary**: How to read the clerk's stamp on a Louisiana act, which book it goes in, how the Civil Code orders same-day filings, and when a recorded mortgage reinscribes.
- **Sections**: In one paragraph; On this page; Who keeps the books; Which book an act goes in; Reading the stamp; When recording takes effect, and who is first; What recording does not do; The indexes, and how far behind they run
  - The clerk of a Louisiana parish is required to stamp each act accepted for recording, and the act is kept in a book or under a number. This page reads both: what the stamp says, which book an act belongs in, how the Civil Code orders two acts filed at the same date and time, and what being on record does and does not prove.
  - Last checked September 29, 2026. This is general information taken from the sources listed at the bottom. It is not legal advice and not a title opinion. We are landmen, not attorneys, and this page does not tell anyone what their own title is.
  - The clerk of the district court is the ex officio parish recorder of conveyances and mortgages (R.S. 44:71(B)), and the effect of recording starts when the clerk accepts an act for filing (La. C.C. art. 3347). The clerk stamps it with the date, the time and a registry number (art. 3348). An instrument creating or relating to a mortgage or privilege over an immovable, and the pledge of a lessor's rights in a lease and its rents, is recorded in the mortgage records, and every other instrument is recorded in the conveyance records (art. 3346(A)). Recording is effective only for immovables in the parish where the act is recorded, and it creates no presumption that the act is valid or genuine (art. 3341). The effect of recording a mortgage generally ceases ten years after the date of the instrument unless a notice of reinscription is recorded first (arts. 3357, 3364), with a different period for some long notes (art. 3358). What any of that means for one title is for the examiner.

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## Complete FAQ Reference

### Q: Is anything searchable here yet?
A: 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.
Source: https://parish.land/

### Q: Can a servitude be created for longer than ten years of nonuse?
A: 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).
Source: https://parish.land/

### Q: Does drilling on a unit interrupt prescription on the whole servitude?
A: 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.
Source: https://parish.land/

### Q: What does it take to show a dry hole interrupted prescription?
A: 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.
Source: https://parish.land/

### Q: How does a prescribed servitude come off the record?
A: 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.
Source: https://parish.land/

### Q: Are you attorneys?
A: No. We're independent landmen. We pull and abstract the records and build the runsheet. We do not give legal opinions on title.
Source: https://parish.land/