The Louisiana Civil Code prescribes information that may be required to appear on recorded instruments. It includes the following statement regarding required information for recorded instruments:
“An instrument shall contain the following information when appropriate for its type and nature: …
(3) A declaration as to whether there has been a change in the marital status of any party who is a transferor of the immovable or interest or right since he acquired it, and if so, when and in what manner the change occurred…. La. Civ. Code Ann. art. 3352(A).”
Our Louisiana HELOC Mortgage (Cx1356) has a section appearing right before the “TERMS AND CONDITIONS” to collect the marital information and declarations including a section to indicate any change in marital status. We have received questions regarding the necessity of this section on the HELOC mortgage.
The statute does not specifically state when the information and declarations may be necessary and uses the phrase “when appropriate for its type and nature.” The statute also states: “The recorder shall not refuse to record an instrument because it does not contain the information required by this Article. The omission of that information does not impair the validity of an instrument or the effect given to its recordation.” Ibid at (B).
In order to allow flexibility, we have created new field 154630 “Print Change in Marital Status Information on Security Instrument” and added it to our standard LA HELOC Mortgage (Cx1356) for clients who wish to suppress the marital status declaration by sending the new field as “Yes”. Our standard LA HELOC Mortgage (Cx1356) will continue to print the marital status declaration by default.
Since by default the marital status declaration will continue to print unchanged unless new field 154630 is sent as “Yes”, this change will be in effect immediately. If you would like to use new field 154630 to suppress the marital status declaration, or have any questions or concerns about this change, please contact Client Support at 1.800.497.3584.
DR-11469
TW 383381