When a commissioner or commissioners shall make sale of real estate pursuant to this chapter and distribute the net proceeds to the persons thereto entitled by law, the commissioner or commissioners may produce the receipts and discharges therefor to the surrogate of the county wherein the real estate, or the more valuable part thereof, is situate.

The surrogate shall, if the receipts and discharges are proved and acknowledged in the manner in which conveyances of real estate are required to be proved or acknowledged, immediately record the receipts and discharges and such proof or acknowledgment in the book of receipts and discharges in his office.

The surrogate shall indorse on each receipt and discharge the book and page where and the time when it was recorded and he shall sign his name thereto.

Such record, or a certified copy thereof under the hand and seal of the surrogate shall, if it is made to appear that the original receipt and discharge has been lost or that it is not in the power of the party offering the evidence to produce the same, be received in evidence in any court of record in this state.

L.1951 (1st SS), c.344.