Reading Louisiana conveyance and mortgage records

Who keeps the books

Each parish has an office for recording mortgages and privileges and one for recording conveyances, and the clerks of the district courts are the ex officio parish recorders of conveyances, mortgages and other acts (R.S. 44:71). The recorder keeps the office at the parish seat, where the permanent records are kept, and may set up branch offices that take documents (R.S. 44:73).

A parish's books are the ones that count for that parish's land. Under C.C. art. 3341(4), recordation is effective only for immovables located in the parish where the instrument is recorded. Land on both sides of a parish line means two sets of books.

Which book an act goes in

Art. 3346(A) splits the records in two. An instrument creating, establishing or relating to a mortgage or privilege over an immovable, or the pledge of the lessor's rights in the lease of an immovable and its rents, is recorded in the mortgage records of the parish where the immovable is. "All other instruments" are recorded in the conveyance records of that parish.

The word "judgment" covers more than one kind of record. DeSoto Parish's clerk describes its mortgage records as holding mortgages, judgments, liens and other encumbrances, so a money judgment can be in the mortgage book while a judgment recognizing heirs is in the conveyance book. Each clerk describes its own books in its own words.

Why recording matters at all

Art. 3338 says the rights and obligations created by four kinds of written instrument are "without effect as to a third person" unless the instrument is recorded in the appropriate mortgage or conveyance records:

1. an instrument that transfers an immovable or establishes a real right in or over an immovable;
2. the lease of an immovable;
3. an option or right of first refusal, or a contract to buy, sell or lease an immovable or to establish a real right in or over one;
4. an instrument that modifies, terminates or transfers the rights created or evidenced by the first three.

Mineral rights are real rights (R.S. 31:16), and R.S. 31:18 says a mineral right is an incorporeal immovable whose situs is the parish or parishes where the burdened land is, and that all sales, contracts and judgments affecting mineral rights are subject to the laws of registry. Whether a particular act fits one of the four items is the examiner's question.

Reading the stamp

On accepting an instrument, the recorder "shall immediately write upon or stamp it with the date and time it is filed and the registry number assigned to it" (art. 3348). That is the whole rule: a date, a time and a number.

Clerks describe their own stamps in their own words. Lafayette Parish's clerk says a document is given an entry number with the date, hour and minute of filing. Livingston Parish's clerk says the deputy clerk stamps it with a unique instrument number and an Index Book and Page number, and that the stamp also records the date, hour and minute. The statute calls the number a registry number, and clerks label it in their own ways.

The illustrated tract page on the home page (not a real tract) writes a cite as "COB 1422/310," meaning the conveyance records, book 1422, page 310. Livingston's stamp carries both an instrument number and an Index Book and Page number, and Lafayette's clerk describes an entry number. Which number a clerk's own search asks for is on that clerk's site.

A "book" does not have to be a bound volume. R.S. 44:116(B) says that when records are made by microfilm or other photographic method, or electronically on non-rewritable magnetic, optical or laser-type storage media, any requirement that records or their indexes be kept in a book or bound volume is satisfied by the appropriate storage unit of the film, tape or disk. R.S. 44:116(A) leaves Orleans Parish out of its rule on recording methods, and this page does not cover how Orleans keeps its books.

When recording takes effect, and who is first

Art. 3347: "The effect of recordation arises when an instrument is filed with the recorder and is unaffected by subsequent errors or omissions of the recorder." An instrument is filed when the recorder accepts it for recordation in his office.

When the stamp does not settle the order, the Code has two fallbacks:

• Same date and time, or no endorsement. If the recorder fails to endorse an instrument with the date and time of filing, or it bears the same date and time as another instrument, it is presumed filed in the order of the registry numbers, and immediately before the instrument with the next consecutive registry number (art. 3349).
• Time cannot be determined. When the date and time cannot be determined under arts. 3348 and 3349, the instrument is presumed filed at the first determinable date and time it appears in the recorder's records (art. 3350).

The table stops at the order of filing. What that order does to the rights of the people named in the acts is a separate question of law, and it is the examiner's.

What recording does not do

A recorded act is not thereby a proved act. The Code sets these limits and presumptions:

• Recordation "does not create a presumption that the instrument is valid or genuine," and "does not create a presumption as to the capacity or status of the parties" (art. 3341(1), (2)).
• The recorder has to refuse an instrument that lacks the original signature of a party, unless the law provides otherwise, and refuse a judgment or other governmental act that is not properly certified (art. 3344(A)). Even so, recordation "does not dispense with the necessity of proving that the signatures are genuine unless they are authenticated in the manner provided by law" (art. 3344(B)).
• An instrument that has been recorded for at least ten years is presumed to have been signed by all persons whose purported signatures are affixed to it and, if it is a judgment, to have been rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction (art. 3351).
• A misspelled or partial name can still count. A recorded instrument is effective as to a third person if the party's name is not so indefinite, incomplete or erroneous as to be misleading and the instrument as a whole reasonably alerts a person examining the records that it may be that party's (art. 3353).

So a runsheet can list what the books show, while whether an act is valid stays a question for the examiner.

The indexes, and how far behind they run

The books are found through indexes, and the indexes can trail the filings. R.S. 44:116(C) lets clerks and recorders make the indexes of conveyance and mortgage records by microfilm or other photographic method, or electronically. Three clerks describe how their own work runs:

• Lafayette Parish. Right after filing, a brief description of the document and the initial parties are available in the online records search. The document is then indexed with a full description and the names of all parties, and the page says the recording and indexing process is complete by the following day.
• Livingston Parish. The recording clerks keep a daily synopsis of recorded documents called the daybook, and the documents are indexed the next business day. The page says both its written and its computerized indexes date back to 1875.
• DeSoto Parish. Its conveyance and plat records go back to 1843. The online index is described as not official, it shows only "released" records, and the page warns that some records may have official numbers but not yet be completely indexed or available in the search.

Art. 3347 dates the effect of recording from filing. An index can be behind the filing, so the day a search was run and the day the last act was indexed are not necessarily the same day.

The statewide portal is run by the Louisiana Clerks' Remote Access Authority, which R.S. 13:754 creates to support "a statewide portal with a universal interface for secure remote access by internet users to certain records maintained by LCRAA members." The authority's About page says the portal debuted on November 9, 2015 with land record indices, lets a user search records of multiple parishes at once, and now covers all 64 parishes. It describes land records as indices. It does not describe document images or fees, so what a given parish offers beyond the index is something to read off that clerk's own site.

The effect of recording a mortgage runs on a clock

The effect of recording a mortgage does not last forever. Under art. 3357, unless the law expressly provides otherwise, the effect of recordation of an instrument creating a mortgage or pledge, or evidencing a privilege, "ceases ten years after the date of the instrument." The clock runs from the date of the instrument, and the article does not say the recording date. It speaks of the effect of recordation ceasing and does not say the instrument is removed from the records.

• A long note. If the instrument describes the maturity of any secured obligation and any part of it matures nine years or more after the date of the instrument, the effect of recordation ceases six years after the latest maturity date described in the instrument (art. 3358).
• Reinscription. Someone can reinscribe by recording a signed written notice that gives the mortgagor's name as it appears in the recorded instrument and the registry number or other appropriate recordation information of the instrument or of a prior notice of reinscription, and declares that the instrument is reinscribed (art. 3362).
• On time. A notice recorded before the effect of recordation ceases continues that effect for ten years from the date the notice is recorded (art. 3364).
• Late. A notice recorded after the effect has ceased again produces the effects of recordation, but only from the time the notice is recorded, for ten years from that date. The mortgage does not have to be recorded again, even if the original recordation was cancelled (art. 3365).
• Only that way. The method of reinscription is exclusive. An amendment of the instrument, or an acknowledgment of the mortgage by the mortgagor, pledgor or obligor, is not a reinscription (art. 3363).
• Cancellation. The recorder of mortgages cancels on a signed written request, in the form prescribed by law, that identifies the mortgage by where it is recorded, and the effect of recordation ceases on cancellation (art. 3366).

The dates are invented, and counting the exact last day is a job for the examiner. A clerk's certificate is a related thing. DeSoto Parish's clerk says its mortgage certificate covers a period of ten years, and Livingston Parish's clerk says a mortgage certificate is not a title opinion and makes no representation about who might actually own the property. Clerks also add their own rules on form. Lafayette's page, for one, says cancellations there must be in authentic form, executed before a notary public.

Where the clerk's books stop

The parish clerk keeps the acts. The state, through the Department of Conservation and Energy, keeps the well files, field orders and unit survey plats. The companion page on SONRIS walks through finding them.

The Registry title of the Civil Code took effect July 1, 2006. The note printed with art. 3338 says Acts 2005, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 13, changed the effective date of Act 169 of 2005 to that date, and the note to R.S. 44:71 points to section 9 of Act 169 for instruments filed, registered or recorded before it. This page describes the current text. It does not cover how earlier law treats an older act.