Every auditor or recording officer must keep a general index, direct and inverted. The index may be either printed on paper or produced on microfilm or microfiche, or it can be created from a computerized database and displayed on a video display terminal. Any reference to a prior *record location number may be entered in the remarks column. Any property legal description contained in the instrument must be entered in the description of property column of the general index. The direct index shall be divided into eight columns, and with heads to the respective columns, as follows: Date of reception, grantor, grantee, nature of instrument, volume and page where recorded and/or the auditor’s file number, remarks, description of property, assessor’s property tax parcel or account number. The auditor or recording officer shall correctly enter in such index every instrument concerning or affecting real estate which by law is required to be recorded, the names of grantors being in alphabetical order. The inverted index shall also be divided into eight columns, precisely similar, except that “grantee” shall occupy the second column and “grantor” the third, the names of grantees being in alphabetical order. The auditor or recording officer may combine the direct and indirect indexes into a single index if it contains all the information required to be contained in the separate direct and indirect indexes and the names of all grantors and grantees can be found by a person searching the combined index. For the purposes of this chapter, the term “grantor” means any person conveying or encumbering the title to any property, or any person against whom any lis pendens, judgment, notice of lien, order of sale, execution, writ of attachment, claims of separate or community property, or notice for request of transfer or encumbrance under RCW 43.20B.750 shall be placed on record. The auditor or recording officer shall also enter in the general index, the name of the party or parties platting a town, village, or addition in the column prescribed for “grantors,” describing the grantee in such case as “the public.” However, the auditor or recording officer shall not receive or record any such plat or map until it has been approved by the mayor and common council of the municipality in which the property so platted is situated, or if the property be not situated within any municipal corporation, then the plat must be first approved by the county legislative authority. The auditor or recording officer shall not receive for record any plat, map, or subdivision of land bearing a name the same or similar to the name of any map or plat already on record in the office. The auditor or recording officer may establish a name reservation system to preclude the possibility of duplication of names.

*Reviser’s note: The definition “record location number” was changed to “recording number” by 1999 c 233 § 10.

Effective date—1996 c 143: See note following RCW 36.18.010.