Title Research and Due Diligence: How to Avoid Costly Title Issues Before Construction Starts

There's a saying in right-of-way work: every title problem starts as a small surprise. A name on a deed that doesn't match the tax record. An old easement nobody remembered. A mineral severance from 1947 that nobody bothered to chase down. By the time those small surprises catch up with a construction schedule, they've become budget overruns, signed contracts with the wrong owner, and lawsuits.

Title research and due diligence aren't paperwork. They're the work that prevents those small surprises from happening at all. For an infrastructure project moving across dozens or hundreds of parcels, the difference between thorough title work and adequate title work shows up in the schedule, the budget, and sometimes the courtroom.

This article walks through what real title research looks like, what due diligence covers beyond the basic title report, and how to integrate title work cleanly into a right-of-way program.

What is title research?

Title research is the systematic process of confirming who owns a property, what other interests exist on it, and what limitations or encumbrances might affect the project's ability to acquire and use the rights it needs.

A complete title research effort answers, at minimum:

Who is the legal owner of record, including all co-owners, trustees, beneficiaries, or other parties with an interest?

What is the chain of title — the documented history of ownership transfers — going back a sufficient period (typically 40 to 60 years)?

What recorded easements, rights-of-way, leases, licenses, or other use rights exist on the property?

What liens, mortgages, judgments, or other encumbrances are recorded against the property?

Have mineral rights been severed from surface rights, and if so, who owns each?

Are there any pending lawsuits, probates, divorces, or other actions that might affect title?

Are there access issues — landlocked parcels, prescriptive easements, or contested boundary lines?

The deliverable is usually a title report or title commitment from a title company, supplemented by detailed records research that the title company may or may not perform on its own.

What due diligence adds on top

Title research tells you what's recorded. Due diligence tells you what's true.

Some things that affect a project's ability to acquire and use property never make it onto the public record. They show up in physical inspection, conversations with the landowner, environmental records, and a hundred other places. A complete due diligence effort goes beyond the title report to identify:

Unrecorded easements and use rights. A neighbor who's been driving across the property to reach their pasture for 30 years may have a prescriptive easement even though nothing's recorded. Survey work and conversations with adjoining owners surface these.

Boundary discrepancies. Deeds describe one boundary; fences mark a different one. Sometimes the difference is meaningful and creates an adverse possession or boundary-by-acquiescence question that has to be resolved before acquisition.

Active occupants without recorded interests. Tenants, family members living on a property, agricultural operators leasing under handshake agreements. The Uniform Act treats these people as displacement candidates regardless of what the recorded title says, and relocation assistance obligations may attach to people whose names never appear on a deed.

Environmental issues. Underground storage tanks, contamination from prior uses, wetlands, listed species habitat, recorded archaeological sites. These don't show up in title work but they can stop a project cold.

Physical access. A parcel on paper has access; a parcel in the real world has a closed gate, a bridge that won't take heavy equipment, or a county road that turns into a two-track. Project plans need to account for what's actually there.

Operational realities. Center-pivot irrigation patterns, livestock operations, harvest schedules, hunting leases. None of these are title issues, but they affect when and how the project can do its work.

A title report is a starting point. Real due diligence is the broader investigation that turns the title report into a project-ready picture of the property.

Why due diligence matters more on linear corridors

For a single-parcel acquisition — a substation site, a small drainage easement — title issues are limited and manageable. For a corridor project crossing 50, 100, or 1,000 parcels, due diligence is the discipline that scales.

A 200-mile transmission corridor will routinely encounter:

Properties where the recorded owner has been dead for 25 years and the heirs have never probated the estate.

Properties owned by family LLCs whose operating documents don't clearly identify who has authority to convey.

Properties subject to conservation easements that may or may not permit the planned use.

Properties with mineral severances where the surface owner's signature won't be enough to convey what the project needs.

Properties with prior utility easements that may or may not give the project the rights it thinks it has.

Properties subject to current foreclosure, divorce, or bankruptcy proceedings that affect who has authority to sign.

Each of these situations is solvable. None of them are solvable on the fly during construction. The point of front-end due diligence is to surface every issue early, while there's still time to work the problem.

Mineral rights: a recurring complication

In the Western U.S., mineral rights are a recurring source of complication. Across Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, and the broader region, surface and mineral estates have been severed on a huge percentage of rural parcels — often decades ago, often through transactions that left fragmented and difficult-to-trace ownership. On the Western Slope in particular — Mesa, Garfield, Rio Blanco, Moffat counties — active oil and gas, coal, and uranium leases sit on top of severed estates that go back to the early 1900s. Front Range counties like Weld and Adams have similar legacy severances tied to the DJ Basin, and even Front Range exurban counties carry mineral histories that can surprise a project team that isn't watching for them.

Why this matters for ROW work:

In Colorado and most western states, the mineral estate is dominant. The mineral owner has the right to use the surface to access and develop minerals.

A surface owner can grant an easement, but that easement doesn't override the mineral owner's rights. If a pipeline crosses a parcel and the mineral owner later wants to drill, the pipeline may have to be moved or the operations coordinated.

For projects that need exclusive surface use, addressing the mineral interest is part of the acquisition. That can mean negotiating with the mineral owner, securing a non-disturbance agreement, or — in some cases — choosing an alignment that avoids active mineral leases.

For projects on federal lands, similar issues arise with reserved mineral interests, BLM-administered leases, and other federal mineral rights.

A title report identifies whether minerals are severed. Due diligence digs into who actually owns them, what the practical implications are, and what the project needs to do about it.

How chain of title actually gets built

Chain of title is the chronological record of how a property has changed hands. A complete chain shows every transfer from a starting point — typically 40 to 60 years back, depending on local practice — through to the current owner, with each link supported by a recorded instrument.

Building chain of title means working through:

County records. Deeds, mortgages, easements, leases, court orders, and other recorded instruments are filed at the county clerk and recorder's office. Most modern records are digitized, but older records often require microfilm or even paper review.

Probate records. When property passes through estate, probate records identify how the transfer happened. Missing or incomplete probates create gaps that have to be cured.

Court records. Divorces, partition actions, quiet title suits, and other court proceedings can affect ownership.

Tax records. Tax records aren't the legal record of ownership, but they can flag inconsistencies between reputed and record ownership.

Other public records. Mining claims, water rights, oil and gas leases, grazing leases, conservation easements — these may or may not appear in standard title work.

A clean chain confirms that the current owner has good title and authority to convey. A broken chain — a missing probate, a deed signed by someone whose authority isn't documented, a transfer to "John Smith and family" without further definition — is a problem that has to be solved before the project can acquire safely.

Title companies do most of this work as part of issuing title insurance. For ROW projects, the title insurance commitment is a useful starting point, but the project's title research often needs to go deeper than what's required for a standard residential closing.

Curative work: solving title problems before they kill the schedule

When chain-of-title issues turn up — and on linear corridors, they always turn up — somebody has to do the work to cure them. Common curative tasks:

Heirship determinations. Identifying the heirs of a deceased owner, getting them onto title, and obtaining signatures from all parties with an interest. Sometimes this requires probate filings; sometimes it can be handled through affidavit and statutory procedures.

Quiet title actions. Court proceedings to resolve ambiguous or contested ownership and produce a judgment that establishes clear title.

Boundary line agreements. Documents executed by adjoining owners to resolve fence-line versus deed-line disagreements before the project relies on either.

Easement releases and modifications. Where existing easements conflict with the project's needs, negotiating with the easement holder to release, relocate, or modify the existing rights.

Lien releases. Working with mortgage holders, judgment creditors, and other lienholders to release their interests against the parcel as part of the closing.

Mineral interest negotiations. Identifying mineral owners and negotiating non-disturbance agreements, accommodation agreements, or other instruments that allow the project to proceed.

Curative work isn't glamorous, but it's the difference between a corridor project that closes on schedule and one that hangs up on a handful of difficult parcels for months.

How title work fits into the project schedule

Title research has to start early — earlier than most project teams plan for. The reasons are practical:

Title research takes time to do well, especially across many parcels.

Issues identified during title research often require curative work that takes additional time.

Appraisals, offers, and negotiations all depend on accurate identification of the legal owner.

Closing schedules depend on clean title commitments and the resolution of any title objections.

A common scheduling pattern for a corridor project:

Title research begins as soon as the alignment is preliminarily defined, even before final engineering.

Initial title reports come back, and the team identifies parcels with potential issues.

Curative work begins on the difficult parcels in parallel with appraisal and ROW agent contact on the clean ones.

By the time the project is ready to close on the cleanest parcels, the difficult ones are well into curative work.

By the end of the acquisition phase, every parcel has been researched, every issue has been addressed, and every closing is supported by clean title.

Compressing this timeline doesn't usually work. The work has to be done, and the curative actions take real calendar time. The choice is whether to do it early — when there's room to absorb surprises — or late, when there isn't.

Working with title companies, attorneys, and surveyors

Title research is a team sport. The cleanest programs integrate three or four specialist disciplines:

Title companies provide the title commitment, search the public record, and (for closings) issue title insurance. They're the foundation of the work.

Real estate attorneys handle curative actions, complex chain-of-title issues, drafting and review of acquisition instruments, and litigation when negotiation isn't enough.

Surveyors provide the legal descriptions, mark the corners, and resolve boundary issues that come up during research and negotiation.

Right-of-way agents carry the work into the field — meeting landowners, walking the corridor, identifying issues that don't show up in records, and coordinating across the other specialists.

A right-of-way firm that does its own title and due diligence work in-house — supported by a network of attorneys, surveyors, and title professionals — can integrate the disciplines smoothly. A firm that outsources every piece often ends up coordinating handoffs more than managing the work.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't title insurance enough?

Title insurance protects the buyer financially if a covered title problem turns up later. It doesn't actually solve title problems — it pays for them after the fact. For an infrastructure project that has to build on the property, financial protection isn't enough; you need clean title before construction starts.

How far back does chain of title need to go?

It depends on the jurisdiction and the project's risk tolerance. Most title searches go back 40 to 60 years. For higher-risk acquisitions or unusual properties, deeper searches are sometimes warranted.

How long does title research take per parcel?

For routine parcels, a couple of weeks from order to clean commitment. For parcels with chain-of-title problems, mineral severances, or other complications, the work can take months. Curative work runs in parallel and doesn't always have a predictable end date.

What happens if a title problem turns up after acquisition?

It depends on the problem. If the project bought from someone who didn't have full authority to convey, the project may not have the rights it thought it had. Curing the issue after the fact — through additional acquisition, settlement, or litigation — is always more expensive than addressing it before.

Are mineral rights always a problem on western projects?

Not always, but often. The right-of-way team should always check whether minerals are severed and whether active leases or operations might affect the project. The depth of the analysis depends on what the project is doing and where.

Who pays for curative work?

Almost always the project. Curative work is part of the cost of acquiring property, and the project needs the result. In some cases, costs are negotiated into the acquisition payment; in others, they're handled through separate professional fees.

Don't let title issues stall your project

Title research and due diligence are the foundation of every ROW acquisition. Done thoroughly, they prevent the small surprises that turn into big problems. Done lightly, they leave projects exposed.

Western States Land Services provides comprehensive title research and due diligence for infrastructure projects across Colorado and the Mountain West. Our team — supported by a network of title professionals, attorneys, surveyors, and appraisers — handles ownership verification, chain-of-title research, easement and lien review, mineral rights identification, and the curative work that keeps projects moving. With offices in Loveland and Grand Junction, our title work is grounded in current familiarity with Front Range and Western Slope county recorder practices, local courts, and the families and operating companies who show up on chain-of-title work in our region.

We integrate title work with right-of-way acquisition, permitting and project management, and Uniform Act-compliant relocation services, so every parcel gets the same complete-picture treatment.

For more on the broader process, see our complete guide to right-of-way acquisition. When you're ready to talk through your project's title needs, get in touch.