By: Darby (Senate Sponsor - Menéndez) H.B. No. 1176
(In the Senate - Received from the House April 26, 2019;
April 29, 2019, read first time and referred to Committee on State
Affairs; May 10, 2019, reported favorably by the following vote:
Yeas 7, Nays 1; May 10, 2019, sent to printer.)
Click here to see the committee vote
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to technical defects in instruments affecting real
property.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Sections 16.033(a) and (c), Civil Practice and
Remedies Code, are amended to read as follows:
(a) A person with a right of action for the recovery of real
property or an interest in real property conveyed by an instrument
with one of the following defects must bring suit not later than two
years after the day the instrument was filed for record with the
county clerk of the county where the real property is located:
(1) lack of the signature of a proper corporate
officer, partner, or company officer, manager, or member;
(2) lack of a corporate seal;
(3) failure of the record to show the corporate seal
used;
(4) failure of the record to show authority of the
board of directors or stockholders of a corporation, partners of a
partnership, or officers, managers, or members of a company;
(5) execution and delivery of the instrument by a
corporation, partnership, or other company that had been dissolved,
whose charter had expired, or whose franchise had been canceled,
withdrawn, or forfeited;
(6) [acknowledgment of the instrument in an
individual, rather than a representative or official, capacity;
[(7)] execution of the instrument by a trustee without
record of the authority of the trustee or proof of the facts recited
in the instrument;
[(8) failure of the record or instrument to show an
acknowledgment or jurat that complies with applicable law;] or
(7) [(9)] wording of the stated consideration that may
or might create an implied lien in favor of the grantor.
(c) An [For the purposes of this section, an] instrument
affecting real property containing a [ministerial] defect in,
omission of, or informality in the [certificate of] acknowledgment
that has been filed for record for longer than six months [two
years] in the office of the county recorder of the county in which
the property is located is considered to have been lawfully
recorded and to be notice of the existence of the instrument on and
after the date the instrument is filed.
SECTION 2. The change in law made by this Act applies only
to an instrument filed for record on or after the effective date of
this Act. An instrument filed for record before the effective date
of this Act is governed by the law in effect immediately before the
effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in effect for
that purpose.
SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2019.
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