An assessor lookup is not a title search. Here's what a Louisiana examiner actually reviews in the parish records — how far back, which books, and what it takes to know you can close.
“Who owns this property?” is the easy question. The parish assessor’s site will usually give you a name, an address, and an assessed value for free.
That is not a property title search.
A Louisiana title search is an examination of the public records in the parish where the property sits — both the conveyance books and the mortgage books — to confirm that the seller can convey, what is recorded against the property, and what has to be cured before anyone should close. Buyers, realtors, and lenders who skip that step are betting the assessor roll is the whole story. It isn’t.
Two different offices, two different jobs:
Louisiana has 64 parishes, not counties. Each parish keeps its own books. A Metairie house is searched in Jefferson Parish. A Mandeville or Slidell house is searched in St. Tammany. A New Orleans house is searched in Orleans, where land records run through the Clerk of Civil District Court rather than a typical parish clerk.
Search the wrong parish and you have not searched the property.
Most states keep a single grantor/grantee index. Louisiana still splits the work the civil-law way:
Conveyance records hold transfers of ownership — acts of sale, donations, exchanges, long-term leases, judgments of possession, and other instruments that move or declare title.
Mortgage records hold encumbrances — mortgages, judicial mortgages, many liens and privileges, building contracts, and the cancellations that should have followed a payoff.
Those indexes are independent. A name that looks clean in conveyances can still have an open mortgage, a judgment, or a federal tax lien in the mortgage books. An examiner who only runs one side has not finished the search.
Louisiana also follows a strict public records doctrine: an unrecorded transfer generally has no effect against third parties. What is in the parish books is what later buyers and lenders can rely on. What never got recorded — a lost release, an unopened succession, a handshake sale — is exactly the kind of problem a search is meant to surface.
For a sale that will be insured, Louisiana law requires the title examination to go back a minimum of thirty years, and longer if needed to reach an arm’s-length sale between unrelated parties. A refinance (mortgage only) has a shorter statutory floor — generally ten years or two links in the chain, whichever is greater.
Practice in this state often runs longer than the floor. Family transfers, successions, and donations are common in the New Orleans metro. Those are not “arm’s-length sales,” so the examiner keeps going until the chain actually supports insurable title.
The examination that supports a title insurance policy has to be done by a Louisiana-licensed attorney, based on the public records or a proper abstract. A nationwide “owner search” printout is not the same product.
A Louisiana search is not only “is there a mortgage?” It is a civil-law chain-of-title review. Typical findings:
That is why Louisiana searches go deeper than a two-owner skip trace. We wrote about the legal reasons in why Louisiana title work is different. The search is where those differences show up as actual exceptions on a commitment.
A clean search means no current public-record problems were found in the period examined. It does not mean nothing can ever go wrong.
Forgery, undisclosed heirs, and fraud often never appear in the clerk’s index. That gap is what an owner’s title insurance policy is for. The search tells you what is in the record. The policy is the backstop for what isn’t.
Do not treat an online assessor printout, a realtor’s tax sheet, or a DIY clerk-portal screenshot as a closing-quality search. Those are starting points.
You can look up a lot. Many parish clerks have online indexes. eClerksLA covers conveyance and mortgage records statewide with an account. Jefferson, Orleans, and St. Tammany all have public-facing search tools of one kind or another.
What you cannot easily do yourself:
If you are buying, refinancing, or lending, the professional search is the one that belongs in the file. If you are only trying to see who paid last year’s taxes, the assessor is enough.
Residential title searches in southeast Louisiana typically run $250–$450, depending on the parish and how messy the chain is. A two-owner suburban tract in Jefferson Parish is one job. A Uptown double that passed through three successions and a tax sale is another.
Timeline follows the records, not the calendar you hoped for. A straightforward search can come back in a few days. Curative work — getting a missing release, opening a succession, fixing a description — is what stretches a closing, not the initial pull of the books.
We’ll quote the file before we start.
If you are a realtor or lender, the same rule applies: a Louisiana file that hasn’t had both books read is not ready to close, no matter how clean the tax roll looks.
Need a search on a specific property? See our title search services or submit the file online.
Louisiana does not have a transfer-on-death deed for real estate. Here's why TOD forms from other states don't move a Louisiana house — and what actually puts title in the next owner's name.
Read →A 1031 exchange lives or dies on the 45-day and 180-day clocks. Here's how title and closing fit both legs of the exchange — and why Louisiana transactions need especially tight coordination.
Read →How long does a Louisiana succession take? What does it cost? Who pays? How do you get a copy of the judgment? Practical answers for heirs, sellers, and anyone stuck waiting on title.
Read →Call us or send a message — we explain this stuff every day and we're happy to talk through how it applies to your specific situation. Solicite un título en línea, pida una cotización o programe un cierre — en oficina, en su ubicación o de forma remota.