A BILL to amend and reenact §§ 8.9A-502, 17.1-275, and 58.1-811, as it is currently effective and as it may become effective, of the Code of Virginia, relating to land records; certain financing statements; recording and indexing fees.
HB448 revises Virginia law governing land records, real-property-related financing statements, and circuit court recording fees. The bill updates § 8.9A-502 to clarify when a financing statement tied to real property, fixtures, as-extracted collateral, or timber to be cut is sufficient, and it expressly addresses the recording and indexing of a “multipurpose deed of trust or mortgage” that incorporates a financing statement. Under the bill, such a document would be treated as a deed of trust or mortgage for indexing purposes, and the clerk would not retain the original as if it were a standalone financing statement.
The bill also amends § 17.1-275 to create a new, much higher fee schedule for recording and indexing multipurpose deeds of trust or mortgages: $200 for 10 or fewer pages, $250 for 11 to 30 pages, and $300 for 31 or more pages. It specifies that these instruments may include a deed of trust or mortgage, security agreement, assignment of rents and leases, and certain real-property-related financing statements, and it requires a front-page legend stating that the document is a multipurpose deed of trust or mortgage. The bill further revises § 58.1-811, the recordation tax exemption statute, to add and clarify exemptions and definitions for certain deeds, mortgages, transfers, and no-consideration transactions, including deeds of gift, quitclaim deeds, transfer-on-death deeds, deeds of distribution, and certain transactions involving trusts, nonprofits, local governments, and The Nature Conservancy.
HB448 would change how clerks record and index certain hybrid real-estate financing instruments and would increase the fees charged for those documents substantially above the standard recording fee. It would also refine the statutory treatment of financing statements that function as part of real-property transactions, affecting lenders, title companies, borrowers, and circuit court clerks. In addition, the bill would broaden and clarify exemptions from Virginia’s recordation taxes for a range of conveyances and mortgage-related documents, which could reduce tax liability for qualifying transfers and estate-planning or nonprofit transactions while preserving the tax for non-exempt transactions.
The available legislative history suggests the bill was generally well received in committee, as reflected by its unanimous 15-0 continuation vote in Finance and Appropriations. No committee transcript is provided, so there is no recorded floor or committee debate to indicate broader support or opposition. The absence of recorded dissent in the vote suggests at least procedural acceptance of the bill’s subject matter, though continuation to the next session indicates it was not advanced to final passage in the current session.
The main policy tension appears to be between simplifying and standardizing the treatment of multipurpose real-estate financing documents and the significantly higher fee imposed on those filings. Parties likely to scrutinize the bill include lenders, real estate practitioners, and clerks’ offices, because the measure changes both filing practice and cost. Another possible point of contention is the scope of the expanded recordation-tax exemptions, which benefit certain nonprofits, local-government-related transactions, trust and estate transfers, and conservation conveyances; those exemptions may be viewed as appropriate clarifications by supporters but as revenue-reducing carveouts by fiscal skeptics.