Recording of Land Titles

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

Page 255

A process by which proof of ownership of real property is filed in the appropriate county office or court to allow purchasers, creditors, and other interested parties to determine the status of the property interests therein.

The process of recording begins when a duly executed, acknowledged, and delivered document is brought to the recorder's office for filing in the record books in the county where the property is located. The recorder's office also keeps a set of indexes containing information about each document so that the document can be discovered by a title search. A majority of states have a GRANTOR-GRANTEE INDEX, a set of volumes containing an alphabetical reference to the surname of the grantor followed by the name of the grantee, a brief description of the document and the property, and the location of the filed document in the official record books. The same information is contained in the "grantee-grantor index," which is organized alphabetically by surname of the grantee. A few states use a "tract index," which organizes all of the documents according to the location of the property.

An individual who plans to purchase land commissions a title search, which involves examining the list of successive conveyances, from original owner to the present holder, that affect a parcel of land. The person conducting the title examination, usually a lawyer or title insurance examiner, prepares an "abstract of title," summarizing the chain of title and listing any liens, charges, or liabilities to which the land may be subject. The ABSTRACT OF TITLE is evidence of the marketability of the record title; a purchaser of an interest in real property will take title subject to all interests constructively disclosed or implied by the record and subject to any interests of which the purchaser has actual notice.

In nearly every state the validity of a conveyance, as between grantor (seller) and grantee (purchaser), is not affected by whether the deed is filed in the public records or not; the question is not who has possession of the deed but who owns title to the land. Before the enactment of state recording acts, the question of priority of title was generally a question of time. For example, if O, owner in fee simple of land, sells to A, giving A a deed to the land, but O later decides to sell the same land to B, B takes nothing because A was first to purchase the land, leaving O nothing...