Loose Document Pages

A small but growing group of customers has gotten into the habit of plopping a stack of loose document pages in front of our cashier terminals and standing there while we try to discern whether the pages make up one document or several. Often, the person on the other side of the counter knows less about the documents than we do since we’ve at least looked at them by that point, so asking the customer to sort things out hasn’t been successful. With increasing frequency, we’ve been missing documents at the bottom of the stack. For example, just yesterday we discovered that a 12 page mortgage recorded on Friday was in fact a 10 page mortgage followed by a 2 page homestead. Assignments of leases and rents (or just plain assignments) have been tacked on to the back of mortgages. We try to be careful, but when the standard mortgage comes with several riders, seeing signature blocks scattered throughout a single document is not unusual. To remedy this problem, we’ve instituted a new rule. The pages of multiple page documents must be fastened together with either a staple or a paper clip when presented for recording, otherwise the documents we will reject the documents. And just a reminder, once a document is recorded, no changes may be made to it. So please, scrutinize your documents with extra care before sending them on their way to the registry of deeds.