That’s exactly right, Alix.  Subsurface title is a completely different animal.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had landmen hand me a lease file and say, “I just took this lease, I need a ‘quick and dirty’ run on it.”  Most of the oil & gas projects I’ve worked in this area involve companies needing due diligence run on pools of leases they’ve either acquired or are going to close on.

I always label my searches “40-Year” or “60-Year” or whatever the case, because as you said “full search” means different things in different jurisdictions.  Whenever I encounter leases, be they oil & gas, mineral, cell tower or what have you, I only show the last lease of record and include a disclosure statement to that effect.  In this part of the country, it would be cost-prohibitive to a client for us to take the time to “run out” all of the leases we encounter in running the surface, because in some cases the mineral estate was severed from the surface back as far as the 1860s.

Regards,
Scott Perry