Terms Used In New York Laws > Real Property > Article 9 - Recording Instruments Affecting Real Property

• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• Attorney-at-law: A person who is legally qualified and licensed to practice law, and to represent and act for clients in legal proceedings.
• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• conveyance: includes every written instrument, by which any estate or interest in real property is created, transferred, mortgaged or assigned, or by which the title to any real property may be affected, including an instrument in execution of a power, although the power be one of revocation only, and an instrument postponing or subordinating a mortgage lien; except a will, a lease for a term not exceeding three years, an executory contract for the sale or purchase of lands, and an instrument containing a power to convey real property as the agent or attorney for the owner of such property. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Digitized paper document: means a digitized image of a paper document that accurately depicts the information on the paper document in a format that cannot be altered without detection. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Docket: A log containing brief entries of court proceedings.
• Electronic: means of or relating to technology having electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic or similar capabilities. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Electronic record: means information evidencing any act, transaction, occurrence, event or other activity, produced or stored by electronic means and capable of being accurately reproduced in forms perceptible by human sensory capabilities. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Electronic signature: means an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with an electronic record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Fee simple: Absolute title to property with no limitations or restrictions regarding the person who may inherit it.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Paper document: means a document in a form that is not electronic. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Presiding officer: A majority-party Senator who presides over the Senate and is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognizing Members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices and precedents.
• purchaser: includes every person to whom any estate or interest in real property is conveyed for a valuable consideration, and every assignee of a mortgage, lease or other conditional estate. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• real property: as used in this article , includes lands, tenements and hereditaments and chattels real, except a lease for a term not exceeding three years. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• recorded: means the entry, at length, upon the pages of the proper record books in a plain and legible hand writing, or in print or in symbols of drawing or by photographic process or partly in writing, partly in printing, partly in symbols of drawing or partly by photographic process or by any combination of writing, printing, drawing or photography or either or any two of them, or by an electronic process by which a record or instrument affecting real property, after delivery is incorporated into the public record. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• recording officer: means the county clerk of the county, except in a county having a register, where it means the register of the county. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• Wet signature: means a signature affixed in ink or pencil or other material to a paper document. See N.Y. Real Property Law 290