Recording

What it means

Recording puts a document into a county's index, where anybody searching the property can find it. The office is called the recorder, the register of deeds, the county clerk or the land records office depending on where you are.

The county is the one where the property sits, which is not always the county where the person lived or died.

Why it matters

An unrecorded document can be perfectly valid between the people who signed it and worthless against a later buyer or lender who did not know about it.

Some estate documents have to be recorded to work at all. Wisconsin requires a small-estate affidavit describing real property to be recorded in every county where the land sits, after thirty days' notice to the heirs.

When you are likely to meet it

• After signing a deed.
• When an affidavit describes real property.
• When searching for what somebody actually owned.

How this varies by state

The office and its name differ by state, and sometimes by county.

Related terms

• Affidavit of heirshipA sworn statement of who a person's heirs are, recorded in the land records where no probate established it.
• DeedThe recorded document that says who owns a piece of real property, and how they hold it.
• Homeowners associationThe body that enforces a neighborhood's rules and collects its dues, with real power over the property.
• Quitclaim deedA deed transferring whatever interest the signer has, with no promise that they have any.
• Real propertyLand and what is permanently attached to it — a house, a barn, a fixed structure. Everything else a person owns is personal property.
• Title searchA check of the public record for what is registered against a property or a vehicle — owners, liens, brands, claims.
• Transfer-on-death deedA recorded deed naming who receives real property on death, with no probate and no present interest for the person named.

Sahvelo guidance that uses this

• How your home passes