3:51 pm, July 11, 2013 New taxes have made the news recently with the passage of the Connecticut state budget. The hidden “gross receipts” gasoline tax has gotten the most press, but other taxes, including a jump in land record fees, will also be taking a bite out of your budget. Currently, when you record documents on the land records in any town in Connecticut, you have to pay $53 for the first page and $5 for each additional page that is being recorded. It does not matter what you are recording or who is involved in the transaction. When you buy a house in Connecticut you have to pay for the recording costs to record the mortgage on the land records. Mortgages vary in length but the average mortgage is 12 pages which results in a total recording fee of $108.00. When you sell a house in Connecticut, you have to pay to have the release of that mortgage recorded on the land records. A release is typically one page so the recording fee is $53. Effective on July 15, 2013, these fees will change if the mortgage itself states that the mortgage is being granted to a nominee. Many people are not aware that for the last several years, most mortgages are granted to a company known as MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.) as nominee for the lender that is lending them the money. MERS, according to its website, is “a national electronic registry system that tracks the changes in servicing rights and beneficial ownership interests in mortgage loans that are registered on the registry.” The new statute in Connecticut states that if MERS is a party to a document, such as a mortgage, then the first page of the document will now cost $159 instead of $53. Therefore, the typical mortgage that used to cost $108 to record will now cost $214 – double the previous price. Since most mortgages in this state are granted to MERS as nominee for the lender, this affects most people who will be buying a house in the future. When you sell a house that has a mortgage on it, you must pay off the mortgage and your lender will then issue a release of the mortgage which must be recorded in order to give clear title to the buyers of your house. You may very well have a mortgage that was granted to MERS as nominee. If that is the case, the cost to record that release is now going to be a flat fee of $159, regardless of the number of pages it contains. Since most releases are only one page, the cost will triple from $53 to $159. As of the publication of this article, the new land record fees will be effective on July 15, 2013. However, MERS has just filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to overturn this law and they have requested a temporary injunction seeking to postpone the effective date. If you have any questions about the fees and how they may impact you, contact your closing attorney for more information. Lawrence M. Garfinkel, Esq. is an attorney with Marinosci Law Group, P.C. and a member of the Connecticut Mortgage Bankers Association Board of Directors.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 12:16:53 +0000
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