Courthouse Tips

​As you all probably know, one of my favorites part of land work is title. I have been thinking about some of my top tips when it comes to running title at the courthouse and I wanted to share them with you all.
My Top 5 Etiquette Tips:

1. Be respectful to all courthouse employees and visitors.
2. Don’t discuss confidential information or leave confidential documents lying around.
3. Familiarize yourself with the local rules and then follow them.
4. Dress appropriately. I recommend keeping it business casual.
5. Take turns.

My Top 3 Organizational Tips:

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel; create a basic system that you use each time you run title. The documents and title chains will change from parcel to parcel, but your system should remain basically the same.
2. Get organized prior to heading to the courthouse. Know what you are looking for, and as you run title, keep track of new names to search.
3. Use your time wisely. Get to the courthouse when it opens and stay until it is closed. You can plan on using a non-courthouse day to scan documents, input information into your runsheet, etc. once you have collected enough documents. It usually doesn’t make much sense to go to the courthouse for half a day everyday because that results in inefficiency and unnecessary mileage costs.