Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/860

* RECOEDING OF DEEDS. 760 BECOBDS. of the time speedily invented a method of evad- ing the statute by means of conveyance by lease and release (q.v.).. The Statute of Enrollments thus became practically inoperative almost from the time of its enactment. (See Conveyance.) A later statute (7 Anne. c. 20) required the re- cording of deeds of all real estate located in the County of Middlesex, and this -was followed by some other statutes having a purely local ap- plication. There is, however, no statute in Eng- land of general application requiring that deeds be recorded, and the practice of recording deeds has never become common in that country. In the United States from the earliest time there have been statutes providing for the re- cording of conveyances of real estate, and now generally in the diflerent States there are statutes providing for the recording of all deeds or instruments affecting the title to real estate, and in certain cases instruments affecting the title to personal property. Thus generally deeds, leases, mortgages, assignments, and releases of mortgage, wills, lis pendens, mechanics' liens, and liens upon or affecting real estate may be record- ed. And in many States mortgages and conditional sales of personal property may be recorded. The luethod of recording is usually prescribed by statute. Generally the document is transcribed nn public record books provided for the purpose. The place of record is usually, in ease of real estate, the county in which the property is lo- cated, or, in case of personal property, the town or city in which the property is located or where the mortgagor or owner resides, or both ; and there are numerous special provisions gov- erning the recording of instruments affecting transitory property, as vessels, canal boats, and the like. The instrument to be recorded must be properly executed, and it is generally required that it shall be acknowledged before a notary or a corresponding puldic officer. It is generally deemed to be recorded from the time it is filed in the otfice of the public officer whose duty it is to record the instrument. The effect of recording a deed or conveyance in accordance with the various recording acts is to give constructive notice of the deed or conveyance to all who deal with the propertj-. Recording a deed is not necessary to determine the rights of those who are parties to it and their privies; but if tiie deed is not recorded a subsequent pur- chaser who has recorded his deed and who had no notice of a prior conveyance will be deemed to have title rather than the first purchaser who did not record his deed. In other words, as be- tween two iimocent parties claiming from the' same grantor he has a good title who first re- cords his deed. Unless the recording act specifically otherwise provides, creditors or those buying with notice of a prior conveyance will not be protected by the recording act. but will acquire only the title actually vested in their grantor. The effect of the recording acts, therefore, is to make the public record the conclusive record of the ownership or interest in real iiroperty to all who rely upon it, and any one who deals with the property, ex- cept a creditor or one having actual notice of an unrecorded instrument affecting the property, may rely upon the state of the public record on the date of taking a deed or conveyance as deter- mining completely the right or interest which he acquires. In England, owing to the practice of not recording instruments of conveyance, it is usual to give the buyer of real estate who is entitled to receive them all the conveyances affecting the property as muniments of title. In the United States this is not necessary or usual, as the public record is sufficient evidence of the title; and the buyer is entitled only to the grantor's conveyance with the usual cove- nants of warranty. RECORDS, Plblic. In the broadest sense, a public record is a written account, history, or memorandum of a fact or event of general iniblic interest, made by a pulilic official in the perform- ance of his duties, and intended to be pi'eserved as permanent evidence of the matters to which it relates. However, the term is usually con- fined to authenticated accounts of legislative acts and proceedings, the judgments and records of proceedings of courts of law, and the originals or copies of wills, mortgages, and conveyances, preserved under recording acts. The nations of remote antiquity had very little idea of preserving these memorials for the pub- lic benefit. Accoimts of the doings of the rulers were indeed preserved, as by the clay tablets of Nineveh and Babylon, but they recorded merely military expeditions or the splendor of the mon- arch, rather than laws or rights affecting the general public. However, as the world became more enlightened and the common people were accorded some rights, it became customary to promulgate laws and presere them in writing in some royal repository, and these were the first true public records. No provision was made for their inspection by the people, and where it was desirable to promulgate a law aft'ecting the people in general, it was usually written upon parchment, or some more indestructible sub- stance, and posted in a public place, or com- municated to those in authority in various dis- tricts and proclaimed by them, through their subordinates or deputies, to the people in their I'espective districts. No method of recording titles to real estate was known until compara- tively modern times. Thus, in a.d. 303, the prin- cipal laws of Rome were painted on twelve wooden boards, known as the 'Twelve Tables' and exhibited in the Forum. During the mediieval ages the laws were usually written on parch- ment and preserved by certain public officials, but it seems that no systematic record of judg- ments or conveyances was kept. The French were probably the first nation to keep judicial records in the sense we employ the term now, and the Xormans introduced the practice into England. Under the feudal system the method of con- veying land was by feoffment w-ith livery of seisin, a sort of dramatic ceremony on the land itself, and written conveyances were not intro- duced until after the Statute of Uses, 27 Hen. VII.. c. 10. By 27. Hen. VIII.. c. 16, known as the Statute of Enrollments, it was provided that conveyances by 'bargain and sale' should lie en- rolled, that is, recorded. These acts were the basis of the recording acts in England and the United States. England has the most complete collection of public records of any of the older nations of the world. However, until 183S. these records were so negligently kept that many valuable ones were destroyed or lost. The oldest English records are the 'tallies in exchequer,' which were made