Lawyers who routinely prepare deeds should be aware that the certification of residence requirement is no joke!
16 P.S. § 9781 endows the Recorder of Deeds to refuse to record a deed “unless the grantee or grantees therein named have attached thereto, and made part of such deed or transfer, a certificate, signed by said grantee or grantees…setting forth the precise residence and the complete post office address of such grantee or grantees, said certificate to be recorded with said deed[.]” 16 P.S. § 9781. However, 21 P.S. § 287 provides:
When any real estate or interest in real estate has been or is in the future conveyed or transferred to any person, and the deed or transfer therefor properly executed and recorded in the office of the proper recorder of deeds without containing a certificate setting forth the precise residence of the grantee as required by law, such deed or transfer is hereby validated and the title to such real estate or interest so conveyed or transferred is hereby declared good and valid notwithstanding such omission.
21 P.S.§ 287.
Under the Statutory Construction Act of 1972, “[w]henever the provisions of two or more statutes enacted finally by different General Assemblies are irreconcilable, the statute latest in date of final enactment shall prevail.” 1 Pa.C.S. § 1936. In Campeu v. Bates, 1903 C.D. 2016, 2017 WL 3597036, *5 (Cmwlth. Ct. Aug. 22, 2017) (unpublished decision), the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court held that 16 P.S. § 9781 and 21 P.S. § 287 operate concurrently (in pari materia). In that case, the Court held that the plaintiff had no right to have a deed recorded without a certificate of residence.
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