County page
Richland County, Montana: title research
Montana document standards for recording, set by state law and repeated by the county.
Recording office and records
- Recording office
- The Richland County Clerk and Recorder. Its public page links to the county's document standards for recording.
- Where the rules come from
- Montana sets document standards for recording by statute, section 7-4-2636 of the Montana Code Annotated (MCA). The county's Document Standards page repeats them and adds a few points of its own.
- Paper, ink and contents
- The statute says a document must be legibly printed or typed in blue or black ink on white paper, 8 1/2 by 11 inches or 8 1/2 by 14 inches. Signatures, initials, dates and handwriting must also be in blue or black ink. A document with more than one page must show the names of the parties on the first or second page.
- Margins and return address
- The statute calls for margins clear of markings: at least 3 inches at the top of the first page, 1 inch at the top of later pages, 1 inch at the bottom of each page, and 1/2 inch on the sides. Page numbers, initials and other designations are excepted. The name and mailing address of the person who should get the document back goes in the upper left corner of the first page.
- Property description
- The statute requires a description of the property if the document conveys an interest in real property. The county says a street address is not a legal description and neither is a deed reference. It asks for a full metes and bounds description, or a subdivision with lot number, or a certificate of survey number. The county lists deeds, contracts for deed, reconveyances, deeds of trust, trust indentures, mortgages, easements and declarations of homestead as examples, and says a substitution of trustee only needs a reference to a document already recorded.
- Exemptions
- A notary's acknowledgment is exempt from the color and margin requirements. An officially certified court or other government document, from an in-state or out-of-state office, is exempt from the standards. A document acknowledged as executed before April 28, 2007 must be accepted for recording as a standard document.
Good to know
- The county says documents are returned to the address written on the document, with no exceptions. If the return address should be a different one, it has to be written on the document before it is recorded.
- The county also says that highlighting makes a document non-standard, and so does a whole document written in cursive.
- A document that needs a 3 inch top margin on its first page has to be drafted that way. Check the layout before it is signed, not after.
Title research in Richland County
Send the legal description and how far back you need and we will scope a runsheet, abstract or set of images for Richland County. Montana's document standards trip up corrective instruments, so we check the layout of any curative draft against them before it is signed. Our services include land work in Montana, and we can add landmen from our network when a project needs them. See oil and gas title work, title research, title curative services and the samples.
Sources
Need Richland County curative or title work?
Send the legal description and what needs fixing or searching. We will scope the work, check any draft against Montana's recording standards, and quote it with your date. Write to [email protected].