Welcome to the fourth edition of what we hope will it be a fun and informative blog featuring a quiz to test your knowledge of Vermont title law. The blog will post on the first Wednesday of every month. At the outset, we tip our cap and give a round of applause to Mike Kennedy in his now famous Ethics blog. We will borrow shamelessly, but hopefully ethically, from Mike’s concept – starting with the Rules.
Rules
- There are no rules. You may use research, statutes, cases, Title Standards, etc.
- Firm/Team entries are welcome – just give it a name!
- Submit your answers from the web form on this page.
- We will post the answers in the Honor Roll with the next blog.
- Feel free to share this with friends and colleagues
Comments and feedback welcome. Enjoy. ~ The VATC Team
This quiz is closed – see the answers in bold below. To view March’s winners please visit our Honor Roll page. View April’s quiz.
March Quiz
- Which of the following will release a Writ of Attachment filed against a property owner?
- Dismissal of the action
- Judgment adverse to the attaching property
- 60 days after Judgment in favor of the attaching party
- All of the above (see Title Std. 16.1)
- Developer creates a six-lot subdivision intending that every lot have the benefit of, and be subject to, a shared road and wastewater system, in common with other lots. Easements for the shared road and shared wastewater system are depicted on a subdivision plat which was recorded prior to the conveyance of the first lot. Developer sells all six lots. The deeds make reference to the recorded plat but fail to mention the easements. What resolution, if any, is required?
- Easements in common must be granted by and between the six lot owners to create and establish easements for the road and common septic system as depicted on the subdivision plat
- The developer needs to convey corrective deeds referencing the easements and common septic system
- No resolution is required based on Clearwater Realty Co. v. Bouchard, 146 VT. 359 (1985), as discussed in the comments to Title Std. 2.2
- The developer needs to convey the easements in a separate instrument and include warranty language in the easement deed
- Seller’s vesting deed conveyed all of Lot No. 2 as depicted on a survey of record. The deed contains a very lengthy recital of the courses and distances between set monumentation (pins which are placed in all corners of the property). When you compare the deed description with the survey, you notice that the deed contains several incorrect calls. In reviewing Title Standard 10.1 and its comments, you decide that the inconsistencies between the deed and the survey won’t blow up your closing because:
- A reference to a monument in a description is given controlling weight over distance descriptions and acreage descriptions.
- When an ambiguity arises in a property description with reference to a recorded survey, the survey controls
- Maps and surveys may be relied upon in interpreting an ambiguous description
- All of the above
- Last week’s title search reveals a 2014 mortgage to New Residential, LLC. There is a discharge recorded on June 21, 2016, executed by Seterus, Inc. as attorney-in-fact for New Residential, LLC. There is no Power of Attorney to Seterus, Inc. of record. You are not concerned because:
- A Power of Attorney need not be recorded to discharge a mortgage per 27 VSA Sect. 348(c)
- A Power of Attorney is not required if the discharge has been of record, unchallenged, for three or more years per 27 VSA Sect. 348(d)
- You can simply record an attorney discharge affidavit per 27 VSA Sect. 464a
- It is common Vermont practice to assume that the agent was authorized to sign a mortgage discharge without the Power of Attorney being recorded
- In the absence of a recorded mortgage discharge, which of the following facts when applied with 12 VSA Sect. 502 and Huntington v. McCarty, 174 Vt. 69 (2001) can be relied upon to conclude that a mortgage of record is unenforceable by operation of law.
- The land records reflect that the undischarged mortgage was refinanced, and the subsequent mortgage has been of record for 15 years or more
- The mortgagors sold the property more than 15 years ago
- The mortgage contains a due date/term which occurred 15 or more years ago
- None of the above