Ask anyone who’s successful in business where they’d rank setting objectives for growth and profitability, and you’ll most likely find they rank it somewhere near the very top of their best business practices.
Which is exactly why I’ve been talking about that very thing in this 5-part series on historical land measurement.
In addition to learning some fun facts about mapping and measuring land, we’ve looked at the effect measurement practices have on the entire timberland investments lifecycle – from economic valuation to management, to efficient disposition of assets.
Further, we’ve looked into a compiled list of some pretty compelling evidence that land records management is fundamental to profitable land asset management.
Now let’s finish up this series by connecting the dots between surveying, measurement, historical land records, and present-day due diligence for business growth and profitability.
Due Diligence and Asset Disposition
Doing due diligence is just another way of saying “do your homework.”
When it comes to the disposition of timberland assets, due diligence is extremely critical yet often highly complex.
This checklist features just a few of the many imperatives involved in working through due diligence to help assess both the risks and returns associated with the deal:
- Validate the property legal description
- Obtain an accurate tax reporting history
- Acquire, manage, document, and archive all necessary declarations, documentation, and studies for: easements, environmental stewardship, mineral rights, recreational management, restrictions, and rights-of-way.
And this is only the beginning.
Are you doing everything you possibly can during the due diligence process to ensure a more successful and speedy close? Are you absolutely sure?
How Modern Technology Can Speed Up the Closing Transaction
It’s time to empower your due diligence process with rigorous, objective investigation and the pre-management of your land records.
One way to ensure that you’re getting error-free documentation that speeds up the closing transaction is to employ a technical due diligence process.
Our Land Investment Technical Analysis Service (LITAS) is a proven tool that gives every stakeholder involved in the transaction visual confirmation of the assets, as well as real-time, online access to GIS and legal records.
Recommended and approved as one of the most comprehensive land acquisition and disposition tools in the timberland industry, our LITAS solution offers:
- 95% reduction in mapping error between legal and GIS
- 90% immediate decrease in data duplication, errors, and delays
- 99% data incorporation into current land records
But what about complications caused by disparate office locations, misaligned management practices, and historical documentation?
Orbis’ Atlas Land Records solution provides analysis of your records data, as well as secure, cloud-based storage and maintenance.
The result? You can keep track of legally accurate investment documents in highly searchable, always available form.
This contemporary, efficient solution can help:
- Efficiently and effectively determine record discrepancies
- Enable simple, secure access to always up-to-date, legally accurate documentation
- Ensure a higher value asset
Then … to Now
Access issues, error management, and future investment management. That’s what this series has been about.
- We learned about early surveying and measurement practices – and the effect they have on today’s timberland asset class.
- We reviewed the mathematics behind land measurement – and the implications it has on the accuracy of today’s land records.
- We took an in-depth look at the types of measurement errors – and their impact on the buy/sell transaction.
- We examined some of the historical cause-and-effect issues related to “unclean records”– and the potential ramifications of determining asset value.
And now, in our final post of this series, we showed you how to apply an understanding of historical measurement to modern-day due diligence.
There’s no sense in risking the deal with avoidable inefficiencies and inaccuracies. When you invest in clean, error-free documentation, you not only avoid unwanted surprises in advance of the transaction, you speed up the closing – and that is how you add value to the bottom line.
Now it’s your turn. Evaluate your due diligence process carefully in light of the potential for historical inaccuracies, the influence of complex management practices, and the revelation of documentation and other problems. How can you best ensure your fiduciary responsibility? Post your comments below.
This post is part 5 of our 5-part series on historical land measurement and its impact on timberland investment assets today. Find the other posts in the series here:
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