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From: "Paul" <>
Subject: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] deeds
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 19:03:57 -0500

All good researchers are VERY careful to note
the subtle, yet very important, differences
in deeds that bear the name "trust" or
"trustee" from other deeds. Though, as the
great Justice Holmes once said, "No
generalization is worth a damn," the
following may help. A "deed" conveys an
interest in something - usually land - from
one person or persons to another person or
persons.
A "mortgage deed" is different; it conveys a
similar interest with a condition subsequent
written into the deed which provides that the
buyer or buyers must pay an amount of money
to the seller at a later date, usually in
installments at regular intervals with
interest. When that sum is in fact paid, the
"mortgage" is "released" by the
mortgagee/seller (in the margin of the
recorded deed in early time), after which
release the title is entirely vested in the
mortgagor/buyer.
The "mortgage deed of trust" or simply "trust
deed" is still a different animal; here the
title to the land is transferred by the
seller to a third party - a trustee - which
third party holds the title till the buyer
pays the agreed payments or sums to the
seller, after which the "trust deed" is
extinguished and released of record. So, a
trust deed (deed in trust) tells us that the
grantee in THAT deed was not intended to ever
"own" the property ill not the beneficial
owner, but rather was simply to "hold" the
title till the agreed payments are made.
Many states do not use Deeds of Trust, opting
legally for the less complex mortgage deed.
All that said, remember that trust may exist
in many other instances where money, personal
property or land is conveyed to some third
party to hold until the beneficial interest
holder comes "of age" or of some certain age
other than majority, or where such as
"spendthrift trusts" are needed. BE VERY
careful; stating that something is a "trust"
or that someone is a "trustee" means almost
nothing without gaining complete info from
the records about just what that ancestor was
trying to accomplish by doinbg that. Paul

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