Robert.

You are exactly right about the General Indices or Direct/Reverse Indices being the "Official Indices."

However, there are also contemporary community standards that come into play when doing title work, much like practicing medicine.

When I worked as a petroleum landman we always checked the General Indices and In some states, Alabama, for example, the General Indices were the only Indices. Learning to run title while working for oil companies took me to several states and while we would set up a chain with the Sectional Indices, in those states that had them, the search was not done until all the names were run in the General.

Over the past 10 year or so, people who know better, and those who don't, have all take to running the Section Indices only. It is a practical necessity. The expense and time of running a direct/reverse all the time would create some real problems with clients. So our Title Opinions state that the search is based upon the properly recorded documents as found in the Sectional Indices.

All that said, if there is a break in the chain then one better get to know that General Index. Within the past few years the Mississippi Supreme Court held in an odd decision that if the document is in the Courthouse it is the lawyer or title examiners responsibility to find it.

I look to this decision being overturned. In the mean time everyone I know is still basing their searches on the Sectional Indices, and using the exception that the search is based on the Sectional Indices and the accuracy of said Indices. In that Court decision, the examiner did not use said exception.

Lin

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