Property
State real property law, recording of deeds and title insurance
Real property is state law and the United States never adopted a national title register. Instead deeds are recorded county by county, the record establishes priority rather than guaranteeing ownership, and the resulting risk is managed commercially through title insurance — a product that exists because the register itself is not conclusive. Louisiana applies its own civil-law property regime.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — State and county; federal law reaches discrimination, federal land and interstate disclosure
- Deadline — Mechanic's lien: filed within 60 to 120 days of last work, varying by state
- Deadline — Adverse possession: commonly 10 to 20 years of open and hostile use
- Deadline — Mortgage or deed of trust: recorded promptly to preserve priority
Governing law
- State recording actscounty recorder or register of deeds
- Uniform Commercial Code art. 9security interests in personal property
- Louisiana Civil Code (arts. 448 et seq.)
- Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 et seq.
In practice
Because priority depends on the recording statute, whether a purchaser takes free of an earlier unrecorded interest turns on whether the state is race, notice or race-notice — a distinction with no counterpart in a Torrens jurisdiction. Most states now use a deed of trust with a power of non-judicial foreclosure, which lets a lender sell without a court action and is far quicker than the judicial foreclosure required in states such as New York and Florida.