Recording

Key Takeaways

• Recording places an instrument into the county's public land records, where RCW 65.08.060 puts the job with the county auditor or, in a charter county, the official charged with recording county instruments.
• Under RCW 65.08.070 an unrecorded conveyance is void as against a subsequent purchaser or mortgagee in good faith and for a valuable consideration whose conveyance is first duly recorded.
• Timing is exact. RCW 65.08.070 provides that an instrument is deemed recorded the minute it is filed for record.
• A properly signed deed can still be refused at the counter: RCW 65.04.045 governs margins and first page content, and RCW 82.45.090 blocks recording of a taxable sale until the excise tax is paid or a no tax notation is made.

What It Means

Recording is the act of filing a document into a county's public land records so that anyone searching those records can find it. It reaches deeds, deeds of trust, easements, liens, plats, and any other written instrument that affects an interest in land.

Recording does not make a document valid. A Deed that is in writing, signed, acknowledged, and delivered has already moved ownership between the two parties to it. What recording changes is the instrument's effect on everyone else. Once it sits in the record, a later buyer or lender cannot credibly claim to have dealt with the property knowing nothing about it, and that is the Constructive Notice the record supplies.

This is why the clerk's timestamp does real work. Land gets sold twice, mortgaged while a sale is pending, and encumbered by claimants the seller never mentions. The record is the referee. Washington's recording statute picks the winner between competing claims by combining two tests: whether the later party dealt in good faith and for value, and who reached the counter first. The order of the paperwork can beat the order of the handshakes.

How It Works in Washington

Washington records at the county level. RCW 65.08.060 defines the recording officer as the county auditor or, in charter counties, the official charged with recording county instruments, and defines a conveyance broadly enough to reach written instruments that create, transfer, mortgage, or assign an interest in real property, while excluding wills, short leases, and instruments that merely grant an agent authority.

RCW 65.08.070 is the priority rule. A conveyance that has been acknowledged may be recorded in the office of the recording officer of the county where the property is situated, and a conveyance not so recorded is void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee in good faith and for a valuable consideration from the same vendor whose conveyance is first duly recorded. Good faith plus first to record is the combination that makes Washington a race notice jurisdiction rather than a pure race or pure notice one, which is what the Race Notice Rule describes. The same section fixes the clock: an instrument is deemed recorded the minute it is filed for record.

Two gates stand between a signed deed and the record. RCW 65.04.045 sets the physical format, including a three inch top margin on the first page, one inch margins elsewhere, the document title immediately below that margin, the grantor and grantee names, an abbreviated legal description, and the assessor's property tax parcel number. RCW 82.45.090 sets the tax gate: no instrument of sale or conveyance evidencing a sale subject to the tax may be accepted by the county auditor for filing or recording until the tax is paid and the verification of payment affixed, and where no tax is due the instrument is not accepted until the treasurer makes a suitable notation of that fact on it. The tax being verified there is the Real Estate Excise Tax, and our guide to Washington's graduated excise tax brackets walks through how it is figured.

Example

On March 6 Grant signs a deed selling his Yakima lot to Bea for $268,000. On March 9 he signs a second deed for the same lot to Chen for $274,000. Chen has never heard of Bea and pays full price.

Bea's closer reaches the auditor's counter first, at 9:04 a.m. on March 11, and is turned away. The real estate excise tax affidavit was left out of the packet, and under RCW 82.45.090 no instrument evidencing a taxable sale may be accepted for filing or recording until the tax is paid and the verification affixed. Chen's closer files a complete packet at 2:15 p.m. that same afternoon. Bea records the following morning.

Chen owns the lot. RCW 65.08.070 makes Bea's earlier but later recorded conveyance void as against a subsequent purchaser in good faith and for a valuable consideration whose conveyance is first duly recorded, and the statute deems Chen's instrument recorded the minute it was filed, 2:15 p.m. on March 11. Grant collected $268,000 and $274,000 for one parcel, $542,000 in total, but the recording act decides ownership, and Bea's claim runs against Grant rather than against the land. A missing one page affidavit cost her the property by five hours and eleven minutes.

Common Mistakes and Exam Traps

• Recording is not what transfers ownership. The deed transfers it, and recording protects that transfer against later claimants.
• Washington is a race notice state. A later buyer wins only by taking in good faith for valuable consideration and recording first, so knowing nothing alone or racing to the counter alone is not enough.
• Filed and indexed are different moments. RCW 65.08.070 deems an instrument recorded the minute it is filed for record, not when the auditor finishes indexing it.
• The auditor can reject a correctly signed deed. A format failure under RCW 65.04.045 or a missing excise tax verification under RCW 82.45.090 stops the deed at the counter.