|
Today's work world is causing management and employees to constantly improve productivity. This often means that more work is done by fewer people — or more work done in less time, which means many burdens fall on all of us. One burden that can't be ignored is training, whether that be for new employees or for our existing staff. Think about the following:
There was once a woodsman who had a new ax. The first day he was able to chop down 20 trees in only eight hours. On subsequent days, however, although he worked just as long and hard, he found he was chopping down fewer and fewer trees. One evening he was discussing this problem with a friend and the friend suggested, "Why don't you sharpen your ax?" The woodsman replied sadly, "I'm too busy. If I stop to sharpen the ax I won't get today's quota of trees chopped down."
We are much like that woodsman. We work so hard and diligently to get each day's work done that we never seem to have the time to properly train or mentor our staff. Here are some suggestions on when to add training in your day to day workload:
LEGAL DESCRIPTIONS and ACCESS (INGRESS and EGRESS)
Anytime a plat is recorded. Does it fit adjoining properties, is description totally within ownership of dedicating entities.
Anytime a new survey or description comes through your office.
Are you sure that your abstract shows the means of access (ingress and egress)? Remember, under the definition of abstracting we have to show anything that affects the property and having a means of ingress and egress is a benefit that affects the property.
Watch for private streets as a means of access — what additional matters might be needed? Do adjoining plats furnish the means of ingress and egress? Then show the plat in the abstract.
NOTICE
Every instrument filed gives constructive notice as to the content of the instrument. Whether the legal description is correct or not may affect the legality of that notice; however, as an abstractor, you should be determining, if possible, what the intent was and index the document to the correct legal description. You can tell if the grantor of a mortgage owned property in Section 2 of a platted area, while the mortgage may only read the addition name without giving the section number. Don't try to use "The county didn't index it there" as an excuse — it won't pass muster.
COURT MATTERS
Watch Notice of Lis Pendis and filed Judgments for opportunity to discuss kinds of cases and how they affect real property. Discuss the attachment of judgment liens and their length of lien status, how to remove, renewal times, etc. Keep up to date on changes in the laws, be prepared before the law goes into effect.
GENERAL MATTERS
Anytime an employee asks a question, if it brings up something that hasn't been discussed in awhile, have a short review among your staff. Anytime an attorney's opinion requires changes in an abstract or brings to your attention something you hadn't thought of in a while. Anytime an employee attends an abstracting school, title insurance continuing education course or you attend a conference, seminar or convention. Remember, making the time to train your staff so that they can do it right the first time means you'll have staff time that would have been used to do it over to work on other production. Don't let staff training get by you — with an organized, efficient training mode always in operation, you will have the top notch staff our business requires. Your ax will always be sharp and your production levels high.
Two New Web sites for those interested:
Firstgov.gov — provides access to a lot of governmental information — state and federal
Ordinance.com — claims to have land use information for over 3000 municipalities online.
|
