§ 37-11-2 — Validation of instruments, acknowledgments and records

(a) No deed or other writing conveying or purporting to convey or release or assign real estate, or any interest therein, or to create any power of attorney relating to real estate or any interest therein, heretofore made or executed and delivered by any person or persons whomsoever, or by a husband and wife to a bona fide purchaser for good and valuable consideration, and acknowledged by him or them before an officer duly authorized by law to take such acknowledgments, if such deed, writing or power of attorney was made, executed, acknowledged and delivered prior to June 7, 1955, shall be deemed, held or adjudged invalid, or defective, or insufficient in law or in equity, by reason of any informality or omission in setting forth the particulars of the acknowledgment made before such officer aforesaid in the certification thereof, or in stating the official character of such officer, or the place of taking the acknowledgment, or by reason of the fact that the wife executed such instrument prior to the execution thereof by the husband, or by reason of the fact that the parties making or executing the instrument or writing, or any of them omitted to seal the same, or by reason of the fact that the official taking the acknowledgment omitted his official seal, or by reason of the failure to set forth the date of the deed or other writing or the date of the acknowledgment in the certification thereof, or by reason of the failure to set forth correctly the date of the deed or other writing or the date of the acknowledgment in the certification thereof.

(b) If a period of five years has elapsed from the date of recordation of any deed or other writing, and if said deed or other writing has an acknowledgment considered defective for any reason, then every such deed or other writing shall be as good, valid and effectual in law as if the law with respect to acknowledgments and seals, in force at the date of such acknowledgment had been fully complied with; and the record of the same duly made in the proper office for recording deeds in the State of West Virginia, or in the state of Virginia before formation of West Virginia, and exemplifications of the same duly certified, shall be legal evidence in all cases in which the original would be competent evidence: Provided, That this section shall not apply to suits now pending and undetermined insofar as it amends laws existing at the time such pending suits were instituted, nor to any suit that may be brought within one year after the day this section takes effect, insofar as it amends laws existing at the time this section takes effect; nor shall this section apply to any deed or other writing which has heretofore been declared or held invalid by any court of competent jurisdiction.

Legislative History

1994 Reg. Sess., HB4171; 1955 Reg. Sess., HB132; 1947 Reg. Sess., SB45