Table of Contents

SECTION III - OF THE REGISTERING OF MORTGAGES AND OF THE REGISTER KEPT FOR THAT PURPOSE

Art. 52. Though it is a rule that the conventional mortgage is acquired by the sole consent of the parties, and the judicial and legal mortgages by the judgment or law which grants it, nevertheless, in order to protect the good faith of third persons who may be ignorant of such covenants and to prevent fraud, law directs that the conventional and judicial mortgages, shall be recorded or entered in a public folio book kept for that purpose in the city of New-Orleans for the whole territory.

Art. 53. Mortgages must be there registered at farthest, within six days from the date of such mortgages for the deeds executed or made in the parish of New-Orleans, allowing a day more for every two leagues distance from the place where the mortgage shall have been given to the city of New-Orleans, for the other parishes of this territory.
Such recording made within the aforesaid time, shall have effect even against the third persons, from the date of the passing of the mortgage.
But if the party in whose favor the mortgage has been stipulated, lets the legal term elapse, without having it recorded, the mortgage shall have effect against third persons being bona fide, only from the day of such recording; and this recording, shall not be made after the expiration of the legal term, without an order of the court given for that purpose.

Art. 54. Privileges on moveables as well as on immoveables and legal mortgages, have their effect against third persons, without any necessity of being recorded.

Art. 55. The recording of the mortgages which are by law subject to that formality, shall be made in an office kept for that purpose in the city of New-Orleans for the whole territory, by a public officer whose title shall be the register of mortgages of the Territory of Orleans.

Art. 56. The register of the mortgages of the Territory of Orleans shall keep, for the purpose of entering the several acts which it is his duty to record, agreeably to law, three distinct folio books, in the first of which he shall record all the conventional mortgages;
In the second he shall record all the judicial mortgages; and in the third he shall record all the donations which shall be presented to him for that purpose.

Art. 57. These folio books shall be numbered at each page and signed ne varietur to prevent alteration at their first and last page, either by one of the judges of the superior court of the territory of Orleans, or by the parish judge of New-Orleans, and the acts shall be written therein successively and without any blank or interlineation.

Art. 58. And it shall be the duty of the register of mortgages, to deliver to any person who shall require it, a certificate of the mortgages and donations recorded in his book, and if no such thing exists, his certificate shall contain a declaration of it.

Art. 59. He is answerable for the prejudice resulting:-
1st. When the recording of any act has been omitted in his books;
2dly. When he fails to mention in his certificate one or several acts recorded in his office, unless in this case, his error proceeds from some incorrect information which cannot be imputed to him.

Art. 60. The immoveable or slaves in whose respect the register has omitted in his certificate, one or several of the charges recorded, shall remain, saving the responsibility of the register, free from the charges omitted in the hands of the new possessor, provided he applied for the certificate before he acquired the thing subject to the charge, saving moreover the right of the creditors to be placed for their payment in the order which belongs to them, as long as the consideration has not been paid by the buyer, or the order of payment settled amongst the creditors has not been approved of by the judge.

Art. 61. In no case may the register of mortgages refuse or delay either the recording the acts which are presented to him for that purpose; or the delivery of the certificates which are required of him, under penalty of damages towards the parties.

Art. 62. The register shall have a docket on which he shall enter day by day successively and in a numerical order, the delivery made to him of any acts of sale, donations, judgments, or other titles of mortgages, in order to be recorded, and he shall give to each party, if required, a receipt mentioning the number of the docket on which said delivery had been entered, and it shall not be lawful for him, to record any of the said acts or judgments in the books kept for that purpose, out of the date and order of their being delivered to him.

Art. 63. The creditor who wishes to have any act recorded, shall present either by himself or by a third person, to the register of mortgages, an authentic copy of the judgment or act from which the mortgage originates, or of the donation to be recorded.

Art. 64. The acts recorded may be erased either by and with the consent of the parties concerned and having the necessary capacity for that purpose, or by virtue of a judgment either final or having acquired the force of a matter finally adjusted.

Art. 65. It is the duty of the parish judge of New-Orleans to inspect every three months, the books of the register of mortgages, to know whether they be kept in the order and form directed by law.

Art. 66. The register of mortgages is bound in the exercise of his functions to comply with all the provisions of the present section, under penalty of a fine which shall not exceed one thousand dollars, nor shall be under twenty-five dollars, for every offence against those provisions, besides his being liable for the damages which may result to the parties.
Therefore the said register shall furnish to the governor of the territory one or several sureties to the amount of forty thousand dollars for the surety of the execution of the obligations which are imposed on him by law, and of the payment of the damages which the party may suffer by his failing to execute them.




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