Recording Acts

In real property law, statutes that afford a means of giving constructive

notice
of ownership respecting estates or interests in land by providing for recording the existence of that estate or interest.
These statutes generally provide for recording deeds, mortgages, executory contracts of sale , and leases of specified duration. When one’s interest or ownership in land is recorded, the recording prevents a subsequent purchaser or mortgagee of the land from qualifying as a bona fide purchaser for value without notice, because the instrument recorded would provide at least constructive notice of another’s prior ownership or interest in the land.
Usually recording acts apply to derivative titles and not to original titles, so that anyone who obtains an original title by adverse possession will continue to hold title even if the record holder of title conveys his interest to one who is a bona fide purchaser for value and without notice. See Burby, Real Property §130 (3d ed. 1965).
The different types of recording acts are “pure race,” “race-notice” (with or without a period of grace) and “notice” (with or without a period of grace).
Under the pure race type of recording act, the person who records first takes in preference to other persons who receive an interest from the same source, even if the first recorder had notice of a prior unrecorded conveyance. A racenotice type of act operates in the same way as the race statute, but only if the first recorder had no notice of the prior unrecorded conveyance.
notice type recording acts favor a bona fide purchaser over a prior purchaser so long as the second purchaser had no knowledge of the prior conveyance at the time the purchase was made.
This can only happen where the first purchaser has failed to record his or her deed at the time the second purchase is made, since the act of recording puts all subsequent purchasers on constructive notice of the recorded conveyance, depriving them of the right to assert that they are bona fide purchasers.
Where there is a grace period provided by a recording act, a prior conveyee is protected as against a subsequent conveyee even if he or she doesn’t record first, as long as he or she records within the period of grace defined by the recording act. See Cribbet & Johnson, Principles of the Law of Property 312 (3d ed. 1989); Boyer, Hovenkamp and Kurtz, The Law of Property: An Introductory Survey 598 (4th ed. 1991). See also chain of title. While not technically recording acts, other statutes provide for maintenance of public records which give constructive notice of a person’s interest in the property of another. For example, Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code provides for the filing of security interests in personal property.