Also known as: recorded notice · constructive notice
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Constructive notice imputed to a subsequent purchaser from the proper recording of an instrument in the chain of title. A purchaser is charged with knowledge of every recorded instrument that a diligent title search using grantor-grantee indexes would reveal. Record notice operates under recording acts to determine priority among competing interests in real property.
Renata Russo purchased Blackacre from a seller whose deed from the original owner had been recorded years earlier. Russo conducted no search but later faced a claim from a prior unrecorded grantee. Because the prior deed sat in the chain of title, Russo took subject to it under the recording act.
Rhea Reynolds bought Greenacre from a grantor who had received title through a recorded deed. An easement benefiting a neighboring parcel appeared in a deed from the same original owner to a stranger, recorded in a separate chain. Reynolds took free of the easement because it lay outside her chain of title.
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Rosa Ruiz acquired waterfront land from a developer whose mortgage to Redwood Bank had been recorded before the sale. Ruiz later defaulted on her own loan. The bank enforced its senior lien because the recorded mortgage supplied record notice to all subsequent purchasers in the chain.
Riley Rivera purchased a lot in a residential subdivision whose original deeds contained uniform restrictions recorded in the common grantor's chain. Rivera attempted to build a commercial structure. The neighbors enforced the restriction because the recorded instruments placed Rivera on record notice of the reciprocal negative easement.
Rachel Ramirez rented an apartment from a corporation that had purchased the building subject to a recorded prior lease containing maintenance covenants. When a defect injured a guest, the prior tenant's recorded interest supplied record notice that bound the new owner to the covenant terms.
Robert Rivera opened a business using a name already registered with the state by Rising Sun Electronics. The registration appeared in public records searchable by name. Rivera could not claim lack of notice because the filing provided record notice of the senior user's rights in the same manner as a recorded deed.
Record notice arises automatically when an instrument is properly recorded in the chain of title, imputing knowledge to subsequent purchasers regardless of whether they actually searched the records. Actual notice requires personal knowledge from any source. Recording acts treat record notice as constructive notice sufficient to defeat bona fide purchaser status.
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A deed recorded outside the chain of title does not provide record notice to subsequent purchasers tracing title through the proper sequence of grantor-grantee instruments. Such a wild deed is treated as unrecorded for priority purposes under the recording acts.
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A document not entitled to recording under state law gives no record notice even if mistakenly accepted by the recorder. Many states cure formal defects after a statutory period, but until cured the instrument provides no constructive notice to subsequent purchasers.
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Under a race-notice statute a subsequent purchaser prevails only by taking without record notice or actual notice and recording first. Record notice from a prior properly recorded instrument defeats the later purchaser even if that purchaser records first.
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…575 U. S., at (slip op., at 3) (internal quotation marks omitted). Registration on the principal register (1) “serves as ‘constructive notice of the registrant’s claim of ownership’ of the mark,” ibid. (quoting 15 U.S.C. §1072); (2) “is ‘prima facie evidence of the validity of the registered mark and of the registration of the…