Legislative Developments

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation that, among other things, would provide that certain residential property service agreements are void and would prohibit the recording of void residential property service agreements.

The Texas Legislature is considering legislation that would require the General Land Office to establish and implement a distributed ledger-based title registry pilot program.

The North Carolina General Assembly filed legislation that would protect judges’ personal information.

Utah adopted legislation that provides for the redaction of personal information from a copy of an originally recorded instrument.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation that prohibits agencies from charging a fee for records where an electronic copy is already available from a previous request made within the past six months, except for the actual cost of a storage device or media if provided to the requester.

The Virginia General Assembly passed legislation to create a procedure by which a settlement agent may release a judgment lien when the lien creditor has failed to respond to a request in writing to pay the amount owed. The bill awaits the governor’s signature.

The Florida Legislature introduced legislation to combat property fraud in several ways, including requiring clerks of state circuit courts to create opt-in recording notification services, clarifying quiet title actions may be brought to quiet title after a fraudulent attempted conveyance and requiring real estate licensees and closing providers to send fraud prevention notices under certain circumstances.

The Oregon Legislative Assembly introduced legislation that would require a county clerk to replace a recorded instrument with a court-ordered version that redacts discriminatory practices. It makes changes to the court process for reviewing the language.

The Washington State Senate passed legislation relating to future listing right purchase contracts. The bill is now being considered by the Washington State House.

The Iowa House passed legislation relating to unfair residential real estate service agreements. The bill now goes before the Iowa Senate.