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Foreclosure Forum |
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The priority of simultaneously/concurrently recorded trust deeds – revisited and summarizedLike many others, I have been curious about concurrent/simultaneously recorded trust deeds (same date and time, same lender, sequential document numbers), so I scanned the discussion history using words like simultaneous, concurrent and sequential. I found no less than seven separate discussion threads dating from Nov. 16 ’06 to Nov. 12 ’07. But I did not, to my dismay, find a conclusion. Instead I found a diversity of opinions, positions and research, as well as a comment from Ward on 8/19/07 that he was writing an article about the topic (which I hope will publish soon and resolve this for everyone interested). Here’s my summary of what’s been discussed to date. Ward has written and been quoted that concurrently recorded trust deeds (from the same lender) are of EQUAL priority unless stated otherwise explicitly on either trust deed. I’ll call this the “Presumed Equal Priority” position, and since this camp includes Ward, I have to assume that it’s the correct (and more conservative) position. And Lughead posted a nightmare scenario 5/31/07 which strongly suggested that an investor take this more conservative approach. The other position I’ll call the “Priority by Recording Number” camp – this group asserts that, unless stated otherwise, priority for concurrent and sequentially numbered TDs is established by the recorded document number. This camp includes Rick Harmon and “Buyer”, both of whom have posted intelligent and thoughtful comments. Clearly this is a big deal issue, and I've recently chosen to not bid on a couple of properties where the sequentially recorded TD did not explicitly state its lower priority (such as being stamped with this language: “This deed of trust is 2nd and subject and subordinated to a 1st deed of trust recording concurrently herewith”). This has meant that I’ve passed on a few properties that I really wanted otherwise (albeit, I really didn’t want them if they came along with another $50K to $250K in drag-along trust deed obligation). My question to add to this discussion forum relates to the heading/title of the ‘other’ trust deed. Can the name of the TD suffice to establish the lender's intent to subordinate? For example, oftentimes this smaller and sequentially recorded TD is a home equity line of credit (usually the TD form states on the footer “HELOC”). Is the explicit statement of the other loan being a HELOC satisfactory to establishing that it is lower priority? I’ve also seen a sequential TD where the title of the document is “Deed of Trust (Secondary Lien)”. This seems pretty explicit that the intent of this TD is to be of secondary priority, even though there was no explicit stamp or language that articulated that it was subordinate to a first deed of trust. Anyway, hopefully Ward will weigh in soon with the definitive and final word on this topic. Until this, I’m curious how others are dealing with this issue. Follow Ups:
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