Pa. House Bill would end longstanding blanket
conveyancing practice and increase transaction costs.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is considering drastic
changes to Pennsylvania recording and conveyancing laws that would
significantly increase real property transactional costs.
House Bill 942, introduced March 12, 2013, would prohibit the
transfer of multiple properties with one instrument, except for
mortgage assignments. H.B. 942 is a response to Chesapeake
Appalachia, LLC v. Golden, a case in which the Wayne County
Recorder of Deeds rejected for recording four oil and gas lease
assignments assigning 211 oil and gas leases because she could not
properly index the lease assignments against the underlying lessors
under the oil and gas lease. Documents are only indexed against the
parties to the document. Because the underlying lessors were not a
party to the lease assignments, there was no requirement to index
the assignments against the lessors. The
