The law of deeds has its roots in the ancient rite of livery of seisin. That ceremony served as the precursor to the modern deeding process at a time when very few persons could write. This method of transferring ownership required that the buyer and seller gather a group of local residents on the property to be sold.

All the persons would march around the boundaries of the property and then assemble at its center. Once there the seller would dig up a chuck of sod and provide it to the buyer with the local resident’s witnesses. While offering the grass, the seller would recite the terms of the transaction. Ownership was transferred when the buyer accepted the chuck of sod from the hands of the seller. While the modern deeding processes have replaced the old livery seisin, it’s easier to understand the modern process when it’s compared with the old ceremony.

The modern deeding process today, paper replaces the chunk of sod. Typically, an action is a single sheet of paper. Like the sod, a new deed is created each time there is a sale. Like the ancient ceremony of livery seisin, it’s the whole deeding process which transfers ownership. All the parts of the modern process must be completed before ownership is transferred. These elements of the modern deeding process are execution, acceptance and delivery.

Execution refers to the format, language and signing of the deed document. Many states have enacted statues which specify a form for short, simple deeds. These are called statutory deeds. While all deeds are essentially similar, there are some slight variations from state to state. For example, while some states require that the deeds new notarized effect, most states do not. Public documents relating to marking signed documents in a way which indicates that an official of the state has determined that the signatures are valid.

Thus, if a mother executed a deed in favor of a daughter, but the deed was left in the mother’s safe-deposit box until her death, the deed would not transfer ownership because it was not delivered. Further, if a deed were deliver just as security for a debt, ownership would not transferred because there was no intent to shift ownership. Acceptance merely means that the buyer indicates a willingness to assume ownership. Retaining the deed after delivery usually constitutes acceptance. In a nutshell, this is the deeding process of today!

There is a way for you to save thousands of dollars by challenging you property tax bills; the first step is to find out if you are being over taxed. As the people who deal with the taxes have many different ways of checking home values, some of them just look at previous sales of some homes. Most of these tax assessor’s start to give out tax notices as early as the first of July.

The tax rates are different by city but there is a common rate of 1.2 percent of your assessed value. Your annual taxes can be check online at your tax assessor’s website; you also have to provide information of three different comparable sales which took place in the year 2008 in order to have a good case. The various real estate appraisers will offer this particular service for you for a fee, the method which the assessor uses to value your home is done around all the houses in the area you live.

And because this particular manner valuing your home can lead to your home being over valued and which will have to get a reassessment. You have the right to file an appeal in order to have your property reassessed so to ease some of the high yearly property tax. In the state of California people are paying double the amount of property taxes that they should be paying you will have to make sure you do not end up like these people.