Grantor-grantee index vs tract index in Texas

What the county clerk keeps

The county clerk is the recorder of the county (Tex. Const. art. V, § 20). Under Tex. Prop. Code § 11.004(a), a clerk must record instruments relating to the same property in the order they are filed and must "provide and keep in the clerk's office the indexes required by law." To be effectively recorded, an instrument relating to real property must be recorded in the county where a part of the property is located (§ 11.001(a)).

Chapter 193 of the Local Government Code says what those indexes are. It sets out two ways to index real property records.

• One alphabetical cross-index. Under Tex. Loc. Gov't Code § 193.003(a) and (b), the clerk keeps an alphabetical index to recorded deeds, powers of attorney, mortgages, correction instruments and other instruments relating to real property. The index must state the specific location in the records where each instrument is recorded, and it "must be a cross-index that contains the names of the grantors and grantees in alphabetical order."
• Classes of records. A clerk who keeps records on microfilm must sort instruments into seven classes, and one who does not may (§§ 193.002(a), 193.008(a)). The first class is "Official Public Records of Real Property" (§ 193.008(b)(1)), and a clerk may fold that class and the seventh into one class called "Official Public Records" (§ 193.008(d)). Instruments in a class "must be alphabetically indexed and cross-indexed" under "the names of the parties identified in the instrument" (§ 193.009(a)). The entry gives the parties, the nature of the instrument, the filing date, "a brief description of the property, if any," and where the image is (§ 193.009(b)).

So a real property index entry can carry a short property description. It is still a name index. The sections of chapter 193 that describe the real property index describe it by party name. Land-arranged indexes come up further down, in the abstract plant.

The location in each entry is what a runsheet copies into its Vol/Pg or Inst. No. column. The statutes say "specific location in the records" for the alphabetical index (§ 193.003(a)), and a roll or group number and image number "or by another suitable method" for classified records (§ 193.009(b)(5)). The other page in this set, where Texas land and mineral records are kept, lists the record books a clerk may hold.

How entries are made, and where a search slips

Under the cross-index route, § 193.003(b) says whose names go on the entry for a deed signed by someone other than the owner and for a correction instrument. The table lists five of the entries the section covers:

Text of § 193.003 as read on the state's statutes site, current through the 2025 Legislature. The section was most recently amended in 2021. It does not apply to records classified and indexed the way §§ 193.008 and 193.009 require for microfilm records (§ 193.003(c)), where entries go under the parties named in the instrument.

Clerks also have some room. In Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. GA-0702 (2009), a county attorney asked how to index certain paper instruments, accepted for recording under Prop. Code § 12.0011(b)(2), that correct or amend deeds of trust and are signed by a title company or servicing bank representative rather than by the parties to the deed. The Attorney General wrote that §§ 193.002, 193.003 and 193.009 "do not prohibit a clerk from indexing instruments under names in addition to those specified" and that the clerk has discretion, so such an instrument could be indexed under the signer and also under the original grantor and grantee. An Attorney General opinion is that office's reading of the statute. It is not a court ruling, and this one addressed a narrow set of instruments. It also dates from 2009, and § 193.003 has been amended since (in 2015, 2019 and 2021). The current text has entry rules the opinion does not discuss, such as the one for correction instruments in the table above.

What that means for a search:

• An alphabetical index sorts by the name as entered. Run each form of a name that shows up in the chain, and run it in each capacity the person could sign in.
• Under the cross-index route, a deed by an executor or administrator is indexed under that person and the decedent. Search the decedent's name and the fiduciary's.
• Do not count on an instrument being indexed under more names than the statute names. The Attorney General read the statutes to allow a clerk to add headings in that one setting, but they do not require them.

The sample runsheet on the home page marks a 1996 deed from a Stiles to a Stiles as a possible wild deed (No. 10). Nothing in the chain of Doe and Roe leads to that grantor, so a search that only follows the chain of owners does not run the name. More on that in the last section.

Recorded in the right place, and what recording does

The index only helps as far as recording does. Five sections of the Property Code set the edges:

• Notice. An instrument that is "properly recorded in the proper county" is notice to all persons of its existence and is subject to public inspection (§ 13.002).
• Unrecorded instruments. A conveyance, mortgage or deed of trust is void as to a creditor or a subsequent purchaser for valuable consideration without notice unless it has been acknowledged, sworn to, or proved and filed for record as required by law (§ 13.001(a)). An unrecorded instrument still binds the parties to it, their heirs, and a later purchaser who paid no valuable consideration or who has notice of it (§ 13.001(b)).
• The wrong county. A conveyance, covenant, agreement, deed of trust or mortgage relating to land that was recorded in a Texas county other than the one where the land lies is valid as to a creditor or a purchaser who paid value and had no notice "only after it is recorded in the county in which the land is located" (§ 13.003). Recording it again in the right county does not validate an invalid instrument.
• Old quitclaims. After the fourth anniversary of the date a quitclaim deed is recorded in the deed records of the county where the land lies, it does not affect the question of a later purchaser's or creditor's good faith and is not notice of any unrecorded conveyance, transfer or encumbrance (§ 13.006, added in 2021).
• Where to record. To be effectively recorded, an instrument relating to real property must be recorded in the county where a part of the property is located (§ 11.001(a)).

What a particular buyer or lender is charged with is a legal question for the examiner or an attorney. This page only says where the index stops.

What a deed index search can miss

Lis pendens

During a suit involving title to real property, the establishment of an interest in it, or the enforcement of an encumbrance on it, a party seeking affirmative relief may file a notice that the action is pending with the county clerk of each county where part of the property lies. The same goes after the plaintiff's statement is filed in an eminent domain proceeding (Tex. Prop. Code § 12.007(a)). The clerk "shall record the notice in a lis pendens record" and "shall index the record in a direct and reverse index under the name of each party to the proceeding" (§ 12.007(c)). The notice is effective from the time it is filed and indexed that way (§ 13.004(a)). The statute calls for a separate lis pendens record, so a run through the deed index alone is not a search of it. Check the lis pendens record under each party's name.

Abstracts of judgment

The clerk records each properly authenticated abstract of judgment in the county real property records and enters it on the alphabetical index to those records under the name of each plaintiff and each defendant, with the volume and page or instrument number where it is recorded (§ 52.004). A recorded and indexed abstract, if the judgment is not dormant, attaches as a lien to the defendant's nonexempt real property in that county, with exceptions in §§ 52.0011 and 52.0012 (§ 52.001). It is indexed by names, not by land. It comes up when you search the debtor's name. See No. 13.

A reference to an agreement that was never recorded

A recorded deed carries what is in it. In Westland Oil Development Corp. v. Gulf Oil Corp., 637 S.W.2d 903, 908 (Tex. 1982), the Supreme Court of Texas repeated the rule that "a purchaser is bound by every recital, reference and reservation contained in or fairly disclosed by any instrument which forms an essential link in the chain of title under which he claims." There, a 1973 assignment in the buyers' chain referred to a 1968 operating agreement that was not of record. The court held that the reference charged the buyers with the duty to inspect the operating agreement, and through it with notice of a 1966 letter agreement it referred to. The court added that a different result "might obtain" if diligent inquiry and search had not turned up a copy of the operating agreement, and that the buyers never claimed that.

The index will never list an agreement that was not recorded. Read the instrument itself, and follow each reference in it.

What a tract index is

A tract index sorts records by the land, not the party. The Texas title insurance rules describe one under the name abstract plant.

Tex. Ins. Code § 2501.004(b) tells the Texas Department of Insurance to require that an abstract plant be geographically arranged, cover a period beginning not later than January 1, 1979 and be kept current, and be adequate for use in insuring titles as the department determines. The department's Basic Manual of Title Insurance, Procedural Rule P-12, fills in the definition:

• A plant consists of "fully indexed records showing all instruments of record affecting lands within the county" for a period beginning not later than January 1, 1979.
• The land indexes are "arranged in geographic order," meaning lot and block for subdivided land and survey or section number for acreage tracts. Miscellaneous alphabetical indexes "shall be maintained according to name."
• The indexes may be stored in a computer and, as to land, retrieved by the description of the property under search.
• The records are kept to current date and include, among other things, plat or map records, deeds, deeds of trust, mortgages, lis pendens, abstracts of judgment, federal tax liens, mechanic's liens, attachment liens, divorce actions involving real property, and probate records.

The rule speaks of a plant "used as the basis for issuance of title insurance policies" and mentions a plant that fulfills the licensing requirement for a title insurance agent's license. Read only for what the two texts say, three things follow:

• The 1979 date is the latest a plant may start. It can start earlier, and the rule does not say how far back any plant goes. A link older than a plant's start has to come from another source, such as the clerk's books.
• A tract index is an index of the same recorded instruments, arranged by the land. It does not add instruments that were never recorded.
• The rule speaks of a plant being owned, leased and operated, and of two or more companies combining into a joint plant. Neither text says which counties have a plant, who holds any given county's plant, or whether a landman can get into one. This page does not say either.

Because a name index and a tract index come at the same land from two directions, a hit in one that the other lacks is a reason to look again.

Side by side

The sample runsheet, again

The last line of the sample runsheet on the home page is a 1996 mineral deed from Stiles, John to Stiles, Jane, marked "Grantor not in chain. Wild deed?" Blackacre, Doe, Roe and Stiles are placeholders, not a real tract.

No name in the Doe and Roe chain leads to John Stiles. Following the chain of owners forward, as the grantor index does, never runs his name. That deed turns up if the search runs the Stiles name on its own, or if it also checks a tract index for the land and the plant has posted that deed to it. The chain method and the two indexes cover for each other. Neither one does the other's job. The cure for the deed, if it is a wild deed, is on the curative index at No. 10. The runsheet's 1977 line, where the record owner died and only an affidavit of heirship was filed, is No. 01.

Sources

Everything above comes from the texts below. The state's statutes site runs as a script page, so the links go to the chapter page and its section anchor. Statute text was read there and is current through the 2025 Legislature, 2nd Called Session. The constitutional text on that site is current through the amendments approved in November 2025.

1. Tex. Prop. Code chs. 11, 12, 13 and 52, §§ 11.001, 11.004, 12.0011, 12.007, 13.001 to 13.004, 13.006, 52.001, 52.0011, 52.0012 and 52.004. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.13.htm#13.001
   Chapter 13 is at this link. Chapters 11, 12 and 52 are at the same address with PR.11, PR.12 and PR.52 in place of PR.13. Opened September 29, 2026.
2. Tex. Loc. Gov't Code ch. 193, §§ 193.002, 193.003, 193.008 and 193.009. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/LG/htm/LG.193.htm#193.003
   Recording and indexing by counties. Opened September 29, 2026.
3. Tex. Ins. Code ch. 2501, §§ 2501.003 and 2501.004. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/IN/htm/IN.2501.htm#2501.004
   Abstract plant. Opened September 29, 2026.
4. Texas Department of Insurance, Basic Manual of Title Insurance, Section IV, Procedural Rule P-12 (Abstract Plants), effective January 3, 2014. https://www.tdi.texas.gov/title/titlem4c.html
   Definition and contents of an abstract plant. Opened September 29, 2026.
5. Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. GA-0702 (2009), indexing under Local Government Code chapter 193. https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/2009/ga0702.pdf
   Clerk discretion to index under additional names. Opened September 29, 2026.
6. Westland Oil Development Corp. v. Gulf Oil Corp., 637 S.W.2d 903 (Tex. 1982). https://static.case.law/sw2d/637/html/0903-01.html
   The discussion of references and notice is at 908. Opened September 29, 2026.
7. Tex. Const. art. V, § 20 (County Clerk). https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CN/htm/CN.5.htm#5.20
   The county clerk is recorder of the county. Opened September 29, 2026.