The document itself
Anatomy of a deed
A deed is a legal document that transfers land.
Strip away the formal, legal writing and a deed generally says one thing: "I, the grantor, give this property to you, the grantee." Everything else answers four questions: who is giving, who is receiving, what exactly is moving, and on what terms.
Deeds follow a common script that is easy once you learn it.
A title reader spends 90% of the time on three of these: the granting clause (what's moving), the description (which land), and the reservations and exceptions (what's being held back). Those three are where ownership actually changes shape.
The engine room
The granting clause & habendum
The granting clause is the sentence that does the work. "Grant, bargain, sell, and convey" . . . Whatever interest the deed transfers, this clause is what transfers it.
The habendum clause, "to have and to hold," answers a different question: what kind of estate does the grantee take, and for how long? "Unto Grantee, her heirs and assigns, forever" is the classic formula for fee simple: yours, permanently, and inheritable.
The "to have and to hold" clause, defining the duration and extent of the estate granted. In deeds it usually confirms fee simple. You'll meet it again in oil & gas leases, where the habendum is the star of the show, defining the primary and secondary term.
Most of the time the granting clause and habendum agree, and you read right past them. The trouble starts when a deed's clauses conflict: the granting clause says one fraction, a later clause says another. Courts have spent decades on rules for harmonizing inconsistent deeds, and approaches differ. The practical lesson for an examiner:
- Read the whole deed, every time. Never stop at the granting clause and assume the rest is boilerplate.
- Flag internal conflicts instead of resolving them in your head, because inconsistent fractions in a deed are a classic source of title disputes.
"Boilerplate is just a clause you haven't been burned by yet."
The fork in the road
Reservations vs. exceptions
Here's where deeds quietly sever mineral estates. Two tools let a grantor hold something back, and they are not the same:
A reservation creates (or retains) a right in the grantor. Convey the land, reserve the minerals, and the grantor walks away still owning what's below. This is the classic severance move.
An exception says "this part isn't included," often because it already belongs to someone else (a prior reservation, an easement, an outstanding mineral interest). The exception doesn't create anything new; it just keeps the deed honest.
Why care about the difference? Because the question an examiner constantly answers is "where did this outstanding interest come from?" A reservation tells you an interest was born in that deed. An exception tells you to look further back somewhere up the chain, someone already owns that piece.
Drafters mix these words up constantly: you'll see "excepting and reserving" mashed together as a single incantation. Courts generally look at what the parties meant, not which label they used. Read the substance, not just the word.
What's actually moving
Mineral deeds & royalty deeds
Once minerals are severed, they get bought and sold like anything else. A mineral deed can convey the minerals, but watch out for royalty deeds.
A mineral deed conveys the mineral estate. The grantee becomes a mineral owner: they can lease, collect bonus, and receive royalty.
A royalty deed conveys only the right to share in production revenue. The grantee gets a check when a well produces, but no say in leasing and no bonus.
The infamous problem: deeds that blur the line. A grantor conveys "an undivided 1/16 royalty in and to the minerals." Is that a royalty interest, or a fractional mineral interest? Whole shelves of case law exist because drafters used "mineral" and "royalty" interchangeably. The two interests can differ in value enormously, so the construction matters.
For now, just learn the smell. When a deed mixes "mineral" and "royalty" language, slow down. How this is resolved depends on the jurisdiction.
Finding the land
Legal descriptions
A deed without a workable description of the land conveys nothing. You can't transfer "some of my land out west." Three description systems cover nearly everything you'll see:
- Metes & bounds means walking the boundary: "beginning at the iron pin on the north line of the county road; thence N 45° E, 320 feet to a stone…" Common in older deeds and in states surveyed before the rectangular system.
- The rectangular survey (township & range): the giant grid laid over much of the country. Land is described by section, township, and range. This is the bread and butter of oil & gas descriptions.
- Lot & block: "Lot 7, Block C of the Sunset Acres subdivision, per the recorded plat." City land, described by reference to a recorded map.
A township is a 6×6-mile square containing 36 numbered sections of one square mile (640 acres) each. Descriptions then slice sections into quarters, and quarters into quarters:
160 ac
For title work, the description is how you find every recorded document touching the land. Get the description wrong and you're examining the wrong land.
Making it stick
Recording & constructive notice
Here's a fact that surprises everyone: an unrecorded deed is still valid between the grantor and grantee. Recording is what makes it valid against other parties. It's what makes it safe.
Every county keeps public land records. When you record a deed there, the world is treated as knowing about it. That's constructive notice. Nobody can later buy the same land and claim they had no way of knowing about your deed. The records were the way of knowing.
Why it matters, the classic double-sale:
Someone who buys an interest for value, in good faith, without notice (actual or constructive) of a competing claim. Recording acts generally protect the bona fide purchaser over the earlier buyer who failed to record.
The flavor of recording act varies by state: "race," "notice," and "race-notice" systems allocate the loss a little differently in edge cases. The everyday lesson is identical everywhere: the records rule.
And this, finally, is why title examination works at all. Because everyone is on constructive notice of the records, the records are a complete (if messy) history of ownership. A chain of title is just that history, read in order. That's exactly what we will continue to learn here.
Test yourself
Quick gut-check
Three quick ones. Think first, then tap to check yourself: no score, no login, nobody watching.