Recording title, defined

On Oct 28, 9:33 am, David Chesler <ches...@post.harvard.edu> wrote:
> On Oct 27, 8:08 am, Stuart Bronstein <spamt...@lexregia.com> wrote:
> > When a lease is recorded before a mortgage is made, the lease takes
> > priority.  That is why so many leases provide that they shall not be
> > recorded.
>
>  Could you explain "recorded" please?

To "record" a document conveying an interest in land, one takes the document down to the county courthouse, to the land records office maintained by the clerk of the court, and says "I'd like to record this [deed, lease, mortgage, whatever] please."   One then pays the appropriate fee as requested, the clerk accepts the document, and the clerk files it among the land records of that county, with appropriate indexing (using whatever their usual system is) so that it can be found again if searched for either by land location, or by name of a party to the transaction.  The clerk may or may not keep the actual paper document, but may convert it into microfilm or a digital image preserved electronically, which (since it is the official record, if certified as such by having the clerk's stamp placed upon it when a copy of that image is made) is considered just as good as the old-fashioned parchment deed with pen-and-ink signatures, red ribbon and sealing wax. Then, from that moment on, all and sundry persons are legally considered officially and constructively "on notice" of the existence of that interest in the property, which of course they would also be on actual notice thereof if they, or a properly trained person in their employ, were to conduct a "title search" on the subject property as part of the due diligence normally required to determine the soundness of a title being offered by a seller, and the existence of any impediments or defects to that title, before paying good cash money to close on a contract and acquire a subsequent interest in the same property from the seller.

One who fails to so "record" an interest he claims in the particular piece of land, does so at his own peril if the owner of a previous interest decides to reconvey that interest to a new owner.   The prospective new owner, after performing a diligent title search that did not turn up any evidence of the unrecorded interest, would then be entitled to ignore the unrecorded interest as though it did not exist, and to purchase the prior interest being offered by the person whose interest is senior to (older than) the unrecorded interest, free and clear of any impediment or defect attributable to the unrecorded interest.   In other words, as to the person who failed to act promptly to record the interest he had acquired, you snooze, you lose.

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Mike Jacobs
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