Hudson Valley Law Firm Frequently Asked Questions Videos
Why is it important to record a deed in New York?
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For recording a deed, of course in New York State, we are what’s called a title state and if you’re purchasing property, the actual deed when it’s transferred to you transfers the ownership. That deed in and of itself is all that you need. The main purpose for recording it is to give notice to everybody else out in the world. The importance of that is that if you just hold a deed and you don’t file it and the person who sold it to you decides to sell it to some other person and they search and they don’t see your name, of course, that person can go ahead and buy, they could then technically can become the owner of that property. So you want to make sure that you’re filing the deed and if you’ve retained an attorney or a title company to represent you, they normally will do that for you and then once it’s recorded, forward the original to you.
If for some reason you don’t have an attorney or a title company, you can file the deed in the county clerks office and it would be the county in which the real estate is located, so as an example here in Ulster County, our county clerk is in Kingston. If you were in Dutchess County, it would be in Poughkeepsie, Orange County is in Goshen.
